Working Cattle

Every spring brings about an intense amount of "working cattle" from branding calves to AI to flushing emrbyos to implanting recips. With each task an enormous amount of time and effort is put into planning and succesfully achieving the outcome. We (mostly Dirk) literally spent hours, days on end over at the corrals completing each task required prior to turn-out for the summer.

BRANDING

This year, the branding got rained out on the actuall day we had planned. We were all glad when we had a bit of relief the next day, although with a change in the day a few men scheduled to help could no longer come. Which meant Jessica and I got put to work running the nordforks! Due to working the enitre day my picture selection is very limited.  

We had a lot of help from all the kids! I think they all had a ton of fun.

Jessica sure was a go-getter that day...she made me look bad! She would actually wrestle the calves down and hold them while ground crew worked their magic. She is one tough lady!

Dirk deciding this calf was better suited a steer than a bull!

The kids job was to not let any calves out or any branded calves back in. They absolutely loved this. The only bad thing was we didn't quite have enough flags to go around.

Hideous picture, but proof I was really working that day!

Definitely not a glamorous job!

The crew consisted of:

Ropers - Royce, Landon & Jake

Ground Crew - Dirk, Terry, Jessica & myself

Kids - Jeslyn, Wesley, Jauncee, Rylee, Paysen, Dallas, Carly, Cole, Jackson

Spectators - Suzanne, baby Blake, Annette

Clay & Coy, bless their hearts slept through most the action, which was a huge relief to us mommas working.

AI

Artificial Insemination "AI" requires following one of several protocols. Of which determines how many times the cows are ran through the chute etc. I failed to do my job and document the process. This is one of many times working the cows to breed for the season.

Royce and Jessica are our good friends and are always there to lend a helping hand.

Clay was so grumpy this day, all he wanted was for me to hold him the enitre time. Frustrating!

The protocol we used on heifers is usually different than the cows. For the cows we used the PG 6- day CIDR & TAI. Which consisted of heat detecting and AI on days 0 to 3. Then we administered CIDR's to all non-responders & heat detect and AI days 9 to 12. Then we time breed (TAI) all non-responders 72-84 hrs after CIDR removal with GnRH at AI.

Which consisted of sorting and running through the chute 3 times. It was quite a job but my husband always amazes me at all he can do.

EMBRYO TRANSFER

Beef Cattle Embryo has become one of the most exciting and progressive procedures available to today's producers.  Embryo transfer can increase a cows reproduction efficiency to numerous calves per year, thus increasing your selection opportunities many times. Along with artificial insemination, embryo transfer offers progressive producers fascinating genetic opportunities. And Dirk takes full advantage of this opportunity!

The Donor cow this year was 3409 aka 3XM's gradmother. She produced 28 embryos which we had frozen for later use.

Dr. Lusk performing his magic. He is known to be the best in the business.

Two weeks later, Dr. Lusk came back to implant the embryos into 20 recipients that we had carefully selected out of Terry's herd.

For beef cattle embryo transfer to be successful, it is essential to pay the strictest attention to detail, thus minimizing any outside influences on the success of the transfer. We have had a very high percentage of embryos transfered result in pregnancy.