Tag: heifers

Light Up My Day

On By colleengbergIn Calving Capers, Countrified Blessings, Domestic Animals3 Comments

Sometimes sad things happen here on the ranch. Whenever animals are involved, you can bet you’ll experience some grief from time to time. This is especially true for someone like myself. I get very attached to practically every living thing around here!

We lost our very second calf born out in the cold just as calving was barely getting going a few days ago here. This was the first calf for this heifer and she is a lovely, quiet animal. Every good rancher wants to keep a healthy, lactating cow doing just that. So we needed to put a twin on her. Of course, we have none in our herd, so hubby reaches out to his network and locates a buddy with plenty of twins on hand already.

This means we take a road trip the very same day and pickup a lovely little quiet heifer calf. She got the whole back seat of the truck to herself and traveled like a seasoned tourist. Thank goodness, as otherwise she would have been hogtied…I can’t bear to put a sweet animal into that discomfort.

Needless to say, her entry into our herd on this sad day of loss certainly lightened my day, especially so when momma took her on like a champ and the little gal was able to suck away and right away.

The irony of this whole episode occurred next day when we received 2 sets of twins from 2 heifers one after the other. We are blessed!

A Chilly Start

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Calving Capers6 Comments

Our calving season 2023 is underway. According to the calving record book calendar…..it wasn’t to be happening until next week. I know, I know….mother nature has her own calendar and we continue to be humbled by it year after year.

The March weather is giving us grief and challenges. We are grateful for our big hip-roof barn for sheltering mommas with their newborns but unfortunately we haven’t been able to heat it due to some technical hiccups with our ancient heater and the inability to get the propane company delivery truck out here to fill our propane tank! We have to call and deal with someone in a call center most likely in the maritimes (or from their bedroom – who knows these virtual-work-from-home-days??!!) What a beautiful and welcome sight – when that propane truck finally drove into our yard!!

Meanwhile, and this is a first for us, we had back to back twins delivered from a couple of our first calf heifers in the midst of this chill and these challenges. Always exciting to have twins come along – but at the same time, they provide another subset of issues on top of the normal calving and feeding routines for the rest of the herd on a daily basis. Will the mother accept them? Even if she does, will she have enough milk to feed both? (Especially a concern with first calvers). 

This little twin was telling me she could use a little more to eat…so I have a warm supply of milk replacer always on hand to help out.  Bottle babies are a little more work but it’s sure rewarding to have them need you now and then.

There are probably more rewards than challenges during these long days and nights of calving. Tonight we celebrated the warmth of our barn since that welcome visit from the propane truck and hung out there while our heifer calved peacefully in the pen beside us.

Is there anything more romantic than this?

Making New Friends

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Countrified Blessings, Domestic Animals3 Comments

Every year, post-weaning, I end up with a pen full of young heifer calves. These are the gals that didn’t go to market a couple weeks ago along with their brothers, the steers.

In this pen will be a few select girls that we keep to stay with us to grow up quiet and healthy and become momma cows amongst the rest of the herd.

The quiet part starts with me. Part of my daily tasks are to walk amongst them numerous times a day and get them used to me (and the dogs) and carry on quiet conversation and just general strolling around. The ones that already come up to me get added to my ongoing list of “Flicka Rancher Keepers” that I keep available in my smart phone tucked away in the pocket of my coveralls…always handy actually for snapping these pics and videos and posting to the blog on-the-fly.

I fear that list will probably end up including all of them because I can tell already they want to be friends.

So Proud

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Countrified Blessings, Domestic AnimalsLeave a comment

Yes, I’m so proud of my girls. The group I once called “goofy” performed like perfect ladies (and gents-still have a couple young bull fellas with them) as they followed me gracefully down the gravel road to their new grazing grounds.

Here they remain until we have a few more rare and precious free hours to load them up and bring them home to me for their pampered winter life along with their cow “sisters”.

Heifer-Quieting – Day One

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Domestic AnimalsLeave a comment

Loaded up the feed truck with tubs and pails of grain and headed west to our pasture to visit those lovely heifers. What a beautiful warm October week I have been blessed with to take on this mission. To think that just barely a week ago we were blanketed…no, almost buried under 9 inches of moisture-filled snow just flabbergasts me. But this is just how Alberta can be….blink or sneeze and our weather will do a full 360 turn!

My first solo visit out to these girls was not without it’s anxious moments…which is not uncommon for me and my predicaments. As can be seen by the deep tire tracks in my short video clip, I almost got my big old 4×4 stuck in the soft moisture-soaked terrain of the pasture.

 

Happily, the heifers came from the other end of the pasture to my voice…my non-descript call that has morphed into what you hear in the clip and what used to be “cu-bus”. As I said, non-descript word and non-descript sound but they do recognize me and they do come a-runnin’ from way across the field. THAT was a reward to start. I chummed around with them for a bit while they snacked and even had a few gals come up for a selfie with me (see above).

The weather continues to summer-ize for the next few days so hoping for drier conditions at next visit and even more besties in my domain.

P.S. I should maybe clarify that what you may have heard me say at the end of my video was not “a swear” but rather I was declaring “as they should”.

Goofy Girls

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Domestic Animals3 Comments

I have an important self-imposed assignment this week. I have taken it upon myself to quiet down our herd of bred heifers that are presently out on their own pasture an hour away from the homeplace. We want to be able to “quietly” trail them from one pasture to another pasture next Sunday, along a public gravel road, to get them to the corral system we use to eventually load them before the real winter snow arrives. We have become highly motivated to start this “moving” activity since the recent, unwanted snowfalls have hit home.

My assignment then is to travel to them every couple days this week with grain in pails and hang out with them and talk “softly” to them – get them in a mood to “want to” follow me whenever they next see me again. This, because I will be the one to lead them to the second pasture as my hubby takes the tail-end and pushes them to me.

20181014_1119141697528883359184283.jpg

We visited them today and realized we hadn’t been visiting them enough over the summer…they are a goofy, jumpy, flighty bunch of girls. I’m trusting that by hanging out with them quietly and serenely with my pails of grain and soothing conversations we can all become the best of besties and that they will behave with charm, grace and compliance during their short journey next Sunday.

Delia

On By colleengbergIn Calving Capers2 Comments

There is a character amongst our D heifers (the girls born in 2016). I named her Delia last year. She was headed for the sell group ( of my hubby’s choosing) and I could never understand why. She has always been quiet and friendly and the color red he always normally chooses. So it baffled me that she was ” marked ” as a “sell” while I had her at the top of my “keep” list.

Well, I’m happy to say that I scored a win last year. Just before we loaded all those young gals in the truck little Delia must have looked at Mr Berg just the right way because here she remains on our ranch amongst her other “D” sisters and has become quite the pet for both of us. She has been known to share a sip with my fella from time to time….

IMG_0802

…as well as follow us around in the pen and even nudge us in the butt if we aren’t opening a gate quick enough to her liking.

Needless to say I will be anxious to see what she brings us this first year as a new mom. Would love to have more quiet, friendly daughters from her to “remain on the ranch”!

Calving Capers 2018

On By colleengbergIn Calving Capers1 Comment

The days are drawing near whereby the calves will soon begin to come on our ranch. Each year as we personally get a little more advanced along the timeline of life we push out our calving start date later and later – in hopes that weather will be warmer and more favourable. In hopes that we will rule out the spring storms. In hopes that we can make our calving season a little more graceful on our aging bones and ligaments.

As I write tonight, we are experiencing the usual wet snows that start and stop day in and day out and frustrate our efforts to put out straw bedding for the cows comfort along with some other minor frustrations. But these are small inconveniences in the overall scheme of things because we value the beautiful moisture these types of snows provide. All I can think is how green our pastures can be if this keeps up.

As the calving season approaches we make sure to walk amongst our herd and in particular our group of heifers – the gals with the letter “D” tags – born in 2016. We want them to be as used to our presence as much as possible so we can safely move amongst them if they need our assistance during this new adventure about to enter their lives. Ideally, we trust we have made the proper bull choice and the deliveries will come naturally and without incident. But until then we stroll amongst the girls.

Photo Challenge-Variation

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Domestic Animals, Photo Challenges, Uncategorized1 Comment

Variations on a Theme is the official photo challenge this week put forth from the team at wordpress…the engine behind the world of bloggers. My domain of agriculture never fails to provide me a response to these challenges.

This time it’s our young heifers. Normally they line up nice and orderly to the table for their morning “breakfast” but here comes my variant. Not content to just come and dine this little cowgirl literally came UP to dine!

0L5A2549