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.

G*R*A*T*I*T*U*D*E; Five Life Lessons

It has been rather lonely around these parts for the past couple weeks. Jauncee is with her dad in Utah for 6 weeks and Jeslyn spent 2 weeks with her dad and is now at 4-H camp. And my sweet hubby is working round the clock! With all this time on my hands Clay and & I have had lots of stroller time, swinging time, tractor time, cuddle time, etc...And while he is napping, I have been taking advantage of that time and soaking up some good reads. I have learned a lot of valuable lessons, ones that I would like to share.

Gratitude:  thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation is a feeling, emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive.

Gratitude is the greatest tool we have and one that sets a baseline. If one wishes you had more, you're poor; if you're happy with what you have, you're rich.

I have definitely in my life time spent a lot of time focusing on the LACK in my life: how I want this, or I want that, or how life will be better when this happens...of course, what happens when we focus on something? No matter whether good or bad, it just gets bigger and bigger. It can put us into a tailspin or it can elevate us to new heights. It all depends on the thought we choose to focus on.

My goal is to learn to always be happy with my life RIGHT NOT--not when the package arrives, or when we finally go on that vacation, or when this or that happens--I'll never want for anything else.
The greatest thing one can ever learn is to be happy right now. Happy without reservation!

This is such basic--but difficult--stuff, & I really need to be reminded about it. So from now on, I am always going to remember that...

WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN MOODS. Someone else may be rude, cruel, petty or downright disgusting--but how it effects us is up to us. We can choose to let it "ruin" our day, or we can choose to rise above.

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING TO CHANGE, IT IS UP TO YOU. If you look around at your life and feel dissatisfied with your relationship, your job, what your eating or how messy your home is, it is totally & 100% on YOU to change that. While we may like to shift the blame, tell other people that it is "their job", or ignore it and hope it goes away. The only answer is to CHANGE YOURSELF!

WE HAVE THE POWER TO CREATE OUR LIFE. Our generation spends too much time consuming & not enough time creating. Another good lesson: don't be envious or jealous of people who have what you want. Instead, look at their lives & learn from them!

NOTHING IS PERFECT--& NOTHING IS EVER REALLY FINISHED. It's easy to look at someone else's life & think that everything is wonderful all the time, but, it's not. Additionally, it'sall too easy to fall into the trap of thinking, "Once I get to that next stage, I can rest." Life is not like that!--Which brings us to....

EVERYTHING IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH. Everything--yes, EVERYTHING!

We can choose the low road---anger, frustration, muttering below your breath, clenching your jaw, yelling, huffing, storming around in rage---or we can decide to take the high road. Take a deep breath. Smile. Forgive. Practice empathy & compassion. Recogonize that getting upset doesn't change our situation (& in fact simply entrenches us deeper in a foul mindset)!

"Life is not the way it's suposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you deal with it makes the difference." (Virginia Satin)

Such great words of wisdom...these are all things that someone could tell me and I would roll my eyes and say, "of course, you're right". There's a difference, though, in knowing something intellectually and knowing it emotionally; knowing it in a way that echoes on a deep, core level. Sometimes these obvious truths are some of the most difficult to assimilate...& until we learn them, they will keep popping up in our lives. 

I resolve with starting today!  

Give the best of yourself to everything you do today, then stand back and watch in awe at the day that unfolds tomorrow and every day thereafter.

O-NO-MORE

This tiny little heifer was born a twin. The first born twin! The mother delivered her, licked her clean, nursed her once and then left her asleep in the field and wandered off to the other end and had another calf.

"Bella" which is what the girls decided to call her quickly became an orphan and us girls had the task of bottle feeding her night and morning. I was kind of excited to take on this chore!

Then one day, we had an unfortunate event take pace. One of our big bull calves got sick and within a couple hours died! His mother kept looking for him; it was obvious she missed having a calf. The solution: make her a foster mother to Bella!

So that is just what we did!

We used the oldest trick and the one that works best, which is to skin the cow's dead calf and put the hide over the calf to be grafted. The cow knows the smell of her own calf and this "smell bonding" is used to the advantage. We did however also use a commercial powder called O-NO-MORE. I am not absolutely sure what it does other than it looked like it tasted good to the cow so she wanted to lick her now "new" calf!

It's not always easy to convince a cow to take a calf that is not her own. The more you can do to trick her into thinking this is her own calf, the more likely you will succeed in fooling her.

Good thing Dirk is no amateur!

She went right to nursing on the first try!