It’s been a very sad and stressful time—my mate of 52 years, Mary, lost her battle with cancer July 5th.
Our dear friend and former manager (for 17 years) Larry Haselhorst, came back to help us, keeping business as usual.
The spring was cold and very dry. Our winter pasture (rye grass and cereal rye) responded in kind with late and thinner stands. We grazed it and did not save it for silage. Because of the thin stands of clover, we have a greater weed problem. This problem with clovers has to be managed by mowing. There is no right answer—use clover on grazing meadows to save on nitrogen cost, but mowing is also an added expense.
This summer was greeted with more moisture. The cost of chicken litter became slightly cheaper and since the price of balanced fertilizer has been out of our price range for several years, we used one ton per acre of chicken litter on our grazing pastures and two tons per acre on the our hay meadows. We could get our P&K for about 50% less than commercial fertilizer, with a slight decrease in nitrogen. We did get moisture and had excellent growth.
We have been pleased with our recently weaned calves. We used the VAC 45 program, as usual, giving our first shots 3 weeks before weaning. The calves kept their weight after weaning nicely.
We culled our Brahman herd with removal of open and aged cows. We have grass and are holding our open and aged cows hoping for better prices. We have been encouraged by increased interest in Simmental bulls. It appears that with decreased cow numbers, breeders are looking for increased weaning weights.
Our fall sale will be on Halloween—October 31st, starting at 1:00 pm, offering 70 bulls, 75 bred purebred and Sim/Angus females, and approximately 30 open F1 Brah/Herf heifers ready to breed.
We bred 500 Simmental and Sim/Angus females AI. The purebred sires used were: Superior, noted for thickness and moderate frame, ES Dakota, Fortune 500 Son, Built Right, and Right On for growth. For calving ease, we used leaders: Pacesetter, Ranch Hand, Ollie, Star, and Goldmine. We used Tom Nelson’s bull, Payday (3/4 Simmental, 1/4 Angus), because of his progeny, noted for calving ease, growth, and carcass traits. We used Mytty In Focus (Angus) again because of his calving ease and he produced low birth weight calves with excellent performance.
I described our choice of AI sires because I will give you our opinion of who stands out from the crowd, come weaning time. We clean up with some really good bulls that have held up well in comparison to the AI sires mentioned.
Talk is cheap but I feel that in times like these, every effort should be made to persist in trying to produce quality seed stock for the purebred and commercial producers. We are on the verge of great times for the cow industry. |
