The Idaho Rancher's Wife

The Ranch From the Wife's Perspective

A Herd of (cute) Baldy Calves

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Our herd consists of mostly black cows.  That’s not really as surprise since we run black angus cows.  But every once in a while I wish we could have a red one or a nice gray.  Just to change things up a little, ya know?  Its really not likely to happen unless we strait out buy one.  Its just not in our gene pool.

Something that we do have thought, are some darn cute baldy face calves!  So we can’t have a little extra color in the herd, but at least we get a little white face here and there.  Not to long ago we bred our heifers to some hereford bulls (they are red with a white face).  It seemed like we didn’t get a single baldy calf out of those batch of babies.  Maybe the genes just needed to flow down a few generations before they started to show because these days we have a nice little herd of baldy faced calves.

We weren’t cross breeding just for the looks, if you can believe that.  There is something awesome that happens when you cross breed. Heterosis.   Instead of getting what you would think is an average performance of both breeds, you end up getting increased performance.  The strengths of both breeds come out!

And in this case we get an extra bit of awesome in the cute calves.  I’m not sure why, but don’t you think they have an extra bit of cuteness to them?  (Should we count how many times I said “cute” in this post?!)

Feeding the Calves… from a while ago

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So I got a little ahead of myself, which means that I didn’t share the pictures from  feeding the calves one night.  So even though the calves are long gone, I am enjoying another look at them.

The calves go out on the old alfalfa when they are first weaned.  Between their ravenous eating and the freezing temperatures, alfalfa stops growing.  Once the feed is eaten down we load up the old two ton with some bails and pitch it out to them.

On this fine occasion it is Rancher Sr. and Cowboy Pete with the pitch forks.

It Takes 5 …Semis

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I told you that we sold our calves, but I didn’t get to share everything from our day.  Like that it took 5 semis to haul out all of those calves.  Oh boy it took a while.  Good thing we had some good help-the other Curlew Valley Cowboys.  I think that they come to socialize and eat the cinnamon rolls, but we will take advantage of them being out on the ranch.

Sold the Calves

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Last Monday we had a big day at the ranch.  Its the day that we work all the other 364 days… yep it was sale day. 

And really it couldn’t have gone much better.  Our calf crop this year was really good, weighing in heavier than last year.  After weaning, when it seems that we have the most sickness and loss, we had a lot of good growth.  Having a great summer and fall with these calves makes this pay day so much sweeter. 

Its almost an emotional day because it is a day that we have worked so hard for, for so long.  We have camped out on the desert in the midst of feet of snow to keep alive through the winter.  We have spent long days branding and marking calves.  We have spent even LONGER days in the hot dusty sun moving the herd.  Then there were more long days with the weaning.  We have said some very earnest prayers for these calves to be healthy and to grow well. 

Now we feel the relief, the success, the tiredness, and the drive to gear up for another year.

The Last of Working the Calves

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With so much going on, I missed putting these pictures up.  We have had so many days of working the cows and calves.  Most days are hot and sunny but we did have one day that was overcast and rainy.  Of course you already know that rain at any time is beautiful and happily received. 

 The Rancher’s Sidekick found creative ways to stay busy, dry, and warm.  It DID include commandeering his sister’s stroller and blanket.

 The Cowpuncher was willing to come on a day that he didn’t ride and was cold and rainy.  That’s a pretty dedicated cowboy.

Fall Calves

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Any rancher’s wife will tell you that the fall is a stressful time.  You have to get the calves weaned, vaccinated and occasionally some other fun stuff (tags?).  In the mix you still have bulls to pull out, cows to preg check and get settled into fall pasture, and other fall clean up.  Of course every ranch has their own process to but there is one common thing-stress.

There is an incredible tension that comes home with the semi loads of calves when these cowboys wean them off.  Tension from thoughts like we hope we found all of the calves… We hope that they have grown over the summer… We hope that none of them are sick.  And then we pray every night that they will keep growing and that none will get sick.  The day that we sell those calves is the day that we can heave a sigh of relief. 

In the meantime we are doing everything we can to fatten these babies up!  We took our nightly spin through them and so far we are quite pleased with our crop of calves.

 


About Me

Hello! I'm Allison, The Rancher's Wife! There's nothing I love more than being out on the ranch with my husband and kids. Join me for a look at what goes on here at the ranch and the life being a rancher's wife!

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