Life on a Cattle Farm

January 10th, 2011

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:33:38 +0000

What would the first day of spring calving be without a snow storm? The first calf was born last night, and it is snowing to beat the band right now. Since the last time I wrote, the guys have finished the shed they were adding to the feedlot barn, so we are ready to keep all those new calves dry and sheltered until they are ready to go out and play in the snow. Christmas was very nice. Gary, who normally runs the feed truck for us, offered to feed on Christmas Day, so other than the normal checking on the cows, nobody else had to work that day, which was a rare treat. Lynn’s sister Gwyn and her husband Burton were able to be here, also. All in all, it was a great holiday. Since then, we have been busy sorting the spring cows by calving date, and since, unlike most places, we vaccinate our cows pre-calving instead of pre-breeding (we feel like it gives the calves an extra boost of immunity), we have also put all of the spring cows through the chute and vaccinated them, and bled them for Brucellosis and Johnnes for our annual herd certification. The fall bulls have headed west to Montana for the spring Basin bull sale, but don’t worry, we still have several fall bulls here to sell and over 100 spring yearlings to meet your needs! Unfortunately, with Christmas over, that means part of our help has had to head back to school. Taylor started classes again today, and Alec goes back in another week or so. We’ll be sorry to see them go! This last week while part of us were working cows, they re-built a fence in one of the pens splitting it in two. The fence was torn out a couple of years ago, and the new sucker rod fence they put up looks really nice. It will be handy to have two lots there again instead of one really big one. Well, that’s about it for now, but I’ll be back soon! Be careful in the snow, and stay warm!!

December 15, 2010

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:07:02 +0000

It seems like lately, we always have some sort of big project going on. Right now, the project is adding a shed onto the side of the calving barn at the feedlot. When we spring (read: winter) calve, we bring up all of the cows that are due soon to the pens up around the barn, where we feed them hay and keep a close eye on them. If the weather gets nasty, there is room in the big end of the barn to put those closest to calving inside. Then, there are 8 stalls in the barn (our working alley actually breaks up into stalls if you close all the gates) that we bed and put individual pairs in after they calve, to give them a chance to bond with each other. It also lets us make sure that the calf has nursed, and gives him a chance to be in out of the cold winter weather long enough for him to really get going. After they have been inside for 12-24 hours, they go out into a pen next to the barn for a couple of days so we can still keep a close eye on them before heading out to the big pasture. With the number of cows we are going to be calving all at the same time this spring, we were afraid that there wouldn’t be room to keep them inside for very long, because of needing the stalls for the next calves being born. We decided the best solution to this problem was to add a shed to the side of the barn. Now there will be another place inside that will be big enough to put several pairs once they are bonded with mom and don’t have to stay just with her anymore, but would still be better off inside with more shelter. We got the posts set a day or two before the ground froze too hard, and now they just have to finish building it. Hope they don’t have too much trouble, we start calving January 17th!

December 2, 2010

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:59:18 +0000

Breeding season is well under way here at Hopewell Farms. We have AI’d the first 5 groups, and have 1 left to go. We have been really lucky with the weather, yesterday morning was the first really cold morning that we have had to do any cow work, and it was still sunny out. We also lucked out with our schedule, and didn’t have to work any cows on Thanksgiving. I think this is the first time that has happened in several years. We had a very nice visit with all of the family we had in town, and then put them to work the days after Thanksgiving pulling cidrs, putting in cidrs, vaccinating calves, and bleeding cows (we do an annual whole-herd bleed for brucellosis, and have to draw blood on every cow every year). They all seemed to enjoy it, though, and the extra help was great Hope all of you out there had a great holiday as well!

November 14, 2010

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 20:56:46 +0000

Our new herd bulls arrived today! They don’t seem to be too upset about their ride from Montana. VF Special Focus 820, EXAR Emblazon C 8246, and Basin Prepotent are 3 of the 4 new bulls we will be using this breeding season.

November 6, 2010

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 15:54:15 +0000

I think the geese must have been right- winter’s here! It sure got cold last night. We were out late with our county Young Farmers group haunting a hay ride for the local FFA kids on their way to their barn warming dance. I think the kids had a good time, and I know us older kids had a good time trying to scare them! This morning the boys are going to work on moving some cedar trees to finish a wind break we are building. They are going to use our tree spade to move some bigger trees, so we won’t have to wait quite as many years for them to get big enough to provide some protection from the wind

Last night’s sky

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:27:07 +0000

The sky was so pretty last night, I had to get some pictures and share them. The geese are heading south now- guess that must mean winter’s coming! Also got some neat pics of the cows out on the switchgrass field.

It’s been a while

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 22:00:56 +0000

Well, we told you this was our first attempt at a blog, and we’re obviously not so good at staying committed to it. We’ll try to do better from now on. Since we last wrote, things have been busy. We bred and preg checked the cows we were just synchronizing last time. We were quite successful, with a 95% overall conception rate. We weaned the spring calves that were being born the last time we wrote, and think that they are going to be an impressive group. We have calved the majority of the fall cows. Calving is always so much more enjoyable in the warmer, drier fall. The weather has been cooperating very nicely lately, with the temperatures starting to drop off but not getting too miserably cold, and it’s been dry enough to make the fall harvest a lot easier than it has been the past couple of years. I’m please to say that we actually finished shelling the last of our corn today, which finished our harvesting for the year. The wheat is planted, and the anhydrous ammonia (which is a Nitrogen fertilizer) is in the process of being applied to next year’s corn ground. With the dispersal of the Montana Basin Angus herd, there will be a few changes around the farm here. We have purchased the entire Missouri Basin spring cow herd that has been growing here since 1999. With that purchase and the cows that we already owned, we will be able to continue to provide you with the quantity and quality of cattle that we have in the past. We will continue to work with Doug Stevenson of Basin Angus and proceed down the same genetic path we have been developing for the past 11 years to meet the changing needs of the commercial cattleman.

March 24th, 2010

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:16:45 +0000

This is our first blogging attempt, so we hope it will be a good way to communicate with others who are interested in what we are doing and have some of the same concerns we do about the industry. Spring is always a busy time for us, like it is for most cattlemen. We are nearly done calving, and despite the mud and cold, have gotten along remarkably well. It’s always so much fun to see the babies playing on the grass as it greens up. While you’re still calving, sometimes it’s hard to remember that it is already time to start the breeding process again. We started synchronizing the heifers using Dr. Patterson’s protocol two weeks ago already, and will start the cows before long. It’s only 4 days into spring, but it’s already flying by!!!

Hello world!

Hopewell Farms Livestock LLC — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:36:57 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!