Weaning Calves

A Saturday, a very cold Saturday, we weaned the calves from their momma's!!!  Jared, Emry and I got a head start rounding up the herd to get them into the corrals and Dave and his family joined just in time to get the last of them moving through the gate!! It went really well, it's so good to have everyone out there helping, many hands make light work!!!! Separating went well too!!! Dave ran the gate for the cows to go out and the calves to go in!!! Char and Blake relayed the message to Dave if Jared wanted the animal in the corral or out in the field!! Jared took a group of animals into the alley and sorted them.  Cora and I made sure they didn't go the wrong way!! 

Emry and Leah took pictures!! Everyone had a job!!! I actually think the biggest job was Cora's, she was the dog whisperer!!! She would pet Gibson and Fender to prevent them from chasing the cows, Fender's favourite pastime!!!! 

It was so cold Jared's beard was frozen, pretty cool!!!!!

All our toes were frozen we had to do little tap steps to get the feeling back!!!! And my face, oh was it cold!!!!  I thought this picture was very fitting for how cold it was!!!

Jared and I fed the cows and moved a feeder into the calves pen before heading in for lunch and some hot chocolate!!!!!!

After lunch I made a mad dash for Claresholm to get more bands to casterate the Bulls and make them steers!!!! Boy were there some big guys, it took both Dave and Jared to get the band around the Bulls testicles!  Jared had to put the elastic, which is really quite thick, around his pinky finger and thumb and band 27 animals!!!!! His hand is still sore today!! Everyone again worked hard and we got everyone through the squeeze before it got dark!!! 

Then we went out and rounded up a sick cow. All summer she would go off by herself but didn't show any signs of being sick but recently she would hunch up her back and just looked unwell. So we brought her in and Jared treated her with some antibiotics. We brought her in again the next night after Jared talked to the vet and they suggested he make her swallow a magnet. Doing this would pull any type of hardware, a nail or wire, out of the lining of her first stomach, which could be making her uncomfortable. Unfortunately she was just too far gone, Jared went out the next night to check on her and he had to shoot her. He felt bad, he always hates how he tries to help the animals and it never seems to work in his favor. But he also couldn't let her suffer anymore.

Despite it being a cold day, it was lots of fun and restores my love for the cows when we get to be out there working with them!!!