The Weather Outside is Frightful

It was fifty degrees and sunny today, with no end to the good weather in sight, so we're far enough removed from freezing our hineys off that I can write about snow!

Storms in calving season are the worst, but we expect them, since we sort of live in a snowy state and we calve in the winter, when it, you know, snows.

A question we get asked a lot is "What do you do with the cows when it snows?" They stay outside, we just take extra good care of them!

The main thing is food, food, food. Cows eat more to keep themselves warm and keep up their milk supply. Bert will feed the cows extra hay, and then give them a whole extra bale of oat hay or straw for the calves to lay in. He’ll also bring them into a pasture between the pivot (where they go when they’re big) and the barn (where they’re born) that’s mostly trees, to give them more shelter.

In the pens, we’ll bed them deep with straw, feed them extra food, and try to bring the cows into the barn as they calve so the babies are born in the barn where it’s warm and dry. 

The calves are checked a LOT more often, too. Normally, you don’t have to worry as much about the older calves since they are bigger and stronger, but when we get a lot of snow and wind, they can freeze down or get buried, so it’s important to make sure that they are doing well and their mothers are taking good care of them.

 
If a calf gets cold or sick in these storms, there isn’t always time to bring the mother and the calf in together. While that’s always the ideal situation, sometimes it’s more important to get the calf warm and treated than to bring the pair in together. They are reunited as soon as possible, but keeping the calf alive is always the number one priority. One of my greatest frustrations involving cattle is when you’re trying to bring a mom in to her calf and she just won’t go because MOM JUST COME WITH ME I’M TAKING YOU TO YOUR BABY GEEZ.

Cold kills more calves than the snow does, so storms like the one we’re in now where it snows a foot and then gets down to below zero at night are the really scary ones. Checking, checking, checking all the time.

How do you know if calves are cold? A good way is to put your finger in their mouth. If it’s cold inside, then that calf is cold inside too. You can also feel their feet or their ears, since you can tell by touching them if the calf has or is well on the way to having frostbite, which is another good indicator that they need to be warmed up. You can also tell by how they look or how they’re laying if they’re feeling poorly or if something’s wrong.

If a calf gets cold, they come into the barn and get put into the hot box. Every ranch has a different variation of a hot box involving a box with a small opening or a door lined with straw and heated with heat lamps. If the hot box is in use or too far away, the floor boards of the pickup with the heat blasting are also a popular option, as is inside a (heated) vet room, or the kitchen floor!

So, next time it snows, or gets very cold, or next time you hear someone say that ranchers don’t care about their animals, remember that while the rest of the world is taking snow day, they’re working even longer hours—sometimes around the clock—outside in the blizzard taking care of everything.

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!

Feeding the Girls

Since it's been so cold and snowy, Bert's been feeding the girls every other day or so. Eating more helps the animals keep themselves warm, and so even if the ground isn't completely covered in snow, we feed them if it's really cold.

I love feeding cows, but until they make a car seat adapter for a tractor buddy seat and put on a cab the size of a combine to fit all of our stuff, we're stuck taking pictures of the action.

There are tons and tons of different ways to feed cows. Round bales, square bales, using a bale processor (a machine that unbales the hay and lays it out in a line), flaking it off the back of a wagon or pickup--the options are endless. All of it is great if it gets the hay on the ground! The hay on the ranch here is mostly alfalfa/grass mix, although we do have some straight up grass hay. It doesn't matter what you feed them, so long as it has adequate nutrients and protein to keep a cow healthy.

First, Bert drives out in the tractor and the cows freak out because FOOD!

He lays out the hay in a long line and the girls go to town. I love seeing bright green hay when it's snowy and cold.

Sometimes the girls get really excited and get their food all over themselves. I don't blame them though, it looks delicious!

"Don't bother me, I'm eating."

"Really, though. Go away."

"Feed the girls!" "Sha la la la la la don't be shy, you're a real nice guy because you feed the girls." To the tune of "Kiss the Girl" from the Little Mermaid, of course.