Caking Heifers

I had planned--and written--a post for this week about calving in snowy weather, but we have two feet of snow, and the cows are pretty hunkered down in the trees and won't let me get good pictures! I'm going to try again this afternoon, but in the meantime, I thought I'd hearken back to warmer, less drifted-in times and share some pictures I took a few weeks ago while caking cows with Bert.

Caking the cows is one of my favorite things to do because we can all go together with minimal fuss.

Cow cake is a protein supplement we feed when the cows are on winter pasture. We don’t feed the yearling heifers hay every day unless it’s very snowy, so we supplement their dry forage with cake to fulfill their nutritional requirements. Plus, they LOVE it.

Cake is fed out of a hopper on the back of the pickup, and the cake we use is in cube form. See it down there? It looks like those oat cubes people always feed to horses on the movies.

That's why the heifers love it so much. It's delicious and makes them feel like movie stars, you know? 

Bert drives out to the pasture where the cows are. It's named the Sheep Pasture for the old lambing pens.

And let’s er rip with the siren. The cows come running!

 
Literally, running. It's so funny because cows are NOT built to do anything fast so when they run they look like fat fuzzy see-saws and it's the best.

These yellow heifers aren't joking. 

#iwokeuplikethis

He’ll lay out enough feed (so many pounds per head, measured by “clicks,” or how many times the little door opens on the side of the hopper) for the girls, and then drive back next to them slowly. This is a good opportunity to count and make sure everyone is accounted for, and to get a better look at the girls.

I like this heifer. She always runs to feed and is very enthusiastic about her cake consumption.

Bye girls! Until next time! Sometimes they try and follow the pickup out of the pasture, but it looks like they were happy with what they got this time!