All Things Livestock...

[srsu99]

Sorry I didnt know you were marketing them that way. Sounds like a pretty good deal. In the past people are willingto pay alot more for a novelty meat item. You all have a good niche there. Ranch is not that big for being in west texas, nieghbor has about 200000 acres. Most of the ranches around are being bought up by groups of hunters and little or no cows around anymore, especially since they are alowing wildlife tax exemptions. Could run alot more cows this year. Had like 45" rain already and another 2" last night. Too wet to do much here today. Your assumption of me selling to feedlots is correct. We contract sell on futures. Feedlot will not take many brown calves from me. Had a longhorn bull get in our registered herd a few years ago 50 or so corriente calves were the result. Luckily found some team ropers to buy them otherwise would have taken a real beating. LOL

 

[texasjohn]

Whoopee!!!!

I just knew that as soon as we opened this thread that we'd begin to get into the breed religious wars!!!

Been there... There is no such thing as the "right" breed. Except what is "right" for your operation, your management capabilities, your pocket book, your terrain, flora, fauna and emotional needs. In other words..your cowboy religion.

I subscribe to Jon Bonsma's credo: Form follows Function. In my opinion that is for both the cow and cowboy( see: [SIZE=-1]Bonsma, J. 1965. Wortham Lectures in Animal Science, Wortham Foundation, Texas A & M University Press, College Station, Texas.) This report from the Missouri Forage and Grassland Council is also interesting and worth a studied read. [/SIZE]

We can see right here on TBN the vast, vast differences available from a few well kept tame acres to thousands of what's out there brush and rocks. From cattle with individual names to cattle that are lucky if they have a brand or ear tag at all when they hit the auction ring or feed lot. From marketing that pushes a black hide and a high marbleing content because fat tastes good to grass fed nostalga because it is "more healthy" .

Beware of thinking you can ALWAYS hear the electric fence popping...'tain't true. And, after you walk back and forth many times hunting the problem, you will decide that switches at EACH fence corner for EACH fence segment is the best way to go... and this will send you on a search for cheaper switches.

Spiveyman... if you think that with the new high intensity fence chargers that you can bring yourself to KNOWINGLY touch the fence..you are more punishment prone that I am. Even the old method of taking a green grass blade and sliding it up the wire until you feel a tingle doesn't work... I still get the FULL shock when it comes thru... trust me... a 5 light tester that runs up to 8000 or so volts is the only way to go.

Spiveyman... looked at your pen layout..Lots of good going on there. Suggest, strongly, that you go ahead and make a large pen in the expansion area with a fence from the edge of the barn over to the other fence. Then, make gates from the pens into that big one. Reason is that you don't have enough room to train the animals to come to feed thru the chute.. they need a large area to move into.. this is the expansion pen I'm suggesting. Also, you will need to be able to move stuff out of the pen right next to the chute so you can work on stuff without worrying about your back side....yes, you can get away with working stuff in a chute and have cattle at your back.. but there is always that unique situation when some calf bellers in the chute and its momma just happens to be right behind you in the pen.. swings her horns.. and catches you in the UNAWARES I know that there is lots of information about raised walk areas around chutes, etc... unless you are dealing with lots of animals a lot of the time, I'm not sure that they are worth the expense... I don't have any.. considered them necessary once, but never got around to building them.. and wouldn't now.

EasyEd, I tried the polywire and found it to not be a good deal... at least for anything but a very temporary situation. It breaks easy, doesn't tighten up well, gets wrapped into stuff. I own some but it's left over from my experiment with it... bad way to spend $$ in my opinion unless you have extremely tame pastures and only need very temporary fence control with trained mature animals. Also, I dunno about a 8' wire... all that wire, tall posts, effort just for 1 cow... or the next one that also decides to try jumping... and even at that, I'm not sure that such a tall wire would be as effective at preventing fencing pressure/jumping than a single strand of high tensile wire with 8000 volts on it at about 36 inches off the ground. Such a single wire (I actually prefer two wires reinforced with 3 strands of barb) also teaches calves about fences early.

 

[Spiveyman]

Sorry I didnt know you were marketing them that way. Sounds like a pretty good deal. In the past people are willingto pay alot more for a novelty meat item. You all have a good niche there. Ranch is not that big for being in west texas, nieghbor has about 200000 acres. Most of the ranches around are being bought up by groups of hunters and little or no cows around anymore, especially since they are alowing wildlife tax exemptions. Could run alot more cows this year. Had like 45" rain already and another 2" last night. Too wet to do much here today. Your assumption of me selling to feedlots is correct. We contract sell on futures. Feedlot will not take many brown calves from me. Had a longhorn bull get in our registered herd a few years ago 50 or so corriente calves were the result. Luckily found some team ropers to buy them otherwise would have taken a real beating. LOL

No No, there's no apology necessary! I hope I didn't come across that way. I do appreciate your input as you were honestly trying to help me. That's why we're here, to help and to share, not to cut down one another. I think you have a very cool operation. I'd love to gaze across a 1,000 head herd! And a 65,000 acre ranch, that just blows me away. A 400 acre farm in this neck of the woods is pretty huge. I don't know if our whole county puts out as many cattle as you do. Actually, I'm not sure our county is as big as your ranch!!!! I also just realized that you didn't see the other part of this discussion. It started in a thread I put out there about things you need to start farming, and that one turned into a cattle discussion, so we moved it here. But you didn't get the background. Here's that thread, there's some good stuff in there too about cattle:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/105382-things-you-just-have-have.html

The only thing I don't like, is that I prefer to call my little stretch of land a ranch, but it's only 170 acres and I feel kind of silly calling it a ranch when I'm talking to someone on 65,000 acres.

I know what you mean about the number of cattle around. The numbers are dwindling here too, but so is the rain. Last year we had record rain fall, this year record droughts in some places. Just curious, but what'd you do with that Longhorn bull that violated your herd? Do you have his horns hanging in your house yet?

 

[Spiveyman]

Been there... There is no such thing as the "right" breed. Except what is "right" for your operation, your management capabilities, your pocket book, your terrain, flora, fauna and emotional needs. In other words..your cowboy religion.

Totally agree. Sorry if I came on strong there. It's just that I love what I'm doing and am very passionate about the breed. I'd expect everyone to be that way about their stuff, and everyone is going to want to do something differently. Totally cool with that. Actually I'm glad I'm not having to compete with srsu99, that'd be like bringing a knife to a gun fight. He's got me on resources for sure. Also, the "emotional" side of things - for me the nostalgia of the Longhorn is half of the fun. I just love 'em. But they would drive srsu99 crazy in an operation that big. That's what's great about America, we can each have our own dreams and then go make them happen. There's not just one way to do stuff.

Beware of thinking you can ALWAYS hear the electric fence popping...'tain't true. And, after you walk back and forth many times hunting the problem, you will decide that switches at EACH fence corner for EACH fence segment is the best way to go... and this will send you on a search for cheaper switches.

True, actually with a stronger short (meaning less resistance) there will be less or no pop. If you have a direct short, there's no arcing and no pop.

Spiveyman... if you think that with the new high intensity fence chargers that you can bring yourself to KNOWINGLY touch the fence..you are more punishment prone that I am. Even the old method of taking a green grass blade and sliding it up the wire until you feel a tingle doesn't work... I still get the FULL shock when it comes thru... trust me... a 5 light tester that runs up to 8000 or so volts is the only way to go.

HA! I forget that sarcasm doesn't always come across in print. While it's true that as a kid they made me "test" the electric fences before anyone would cross them to go fishing or something, there's no freaking way I'd do that on purpose. They tried that, "use a piece of grass and it will only tickle a little bit" trick on me too, and it shocked the bajeezes out of me every time. I'm all about a bona fide electric fence tester!

Spiveyman... looked at your pen layout..Lots of good going on there. Suggest, strongly, that you go ahead and make a large pen in the expansion area with a fence from the edge of the barn over to the other fence. Then, make gates from the pens into that big one. Reason is that you don't have enough room to train the animals to come to feed thru the chute.. they need a large area to move into.. this is the expansion pen I'm suggesting. Also, you will need to be able to move stuff out of the pen right next to the chute so you can work on stuff without worrying about your back side....yes, you can get away with working stuff in a chute and have cattle at your back.. but there is always that unique situation when some calf bellers in the chute and its momma just happens to be right behind you in the pen.. swings her horns.. and catches you in the UNAWARES I know that there is lots of information about raised walk areas around chutes, etc... unless you are dealing with lots of animals a lot of the time, I'm not sure that they are worth the expense... I don't have any.. considered them necessary once, but never got around to building them.. and wouldn't now.

Roger that, It would make sense to go ahead with the larger pens and make sure we can work the cattle without worrying about moma cow making us a kabob. You're probably also right about the raised sections for the number of cattle we're working with. May or may not fool with it. Probably will do the bare minimum to get 'er done right now because we really need to move the cattle. Thanks!

 

[texasjohn]

Spiveyman,

No problem... we've got people justifiably proud of their animals... the problem comes in when people attempt to use an animal in a management situation it is NOT suited for.

I think that if you got 10 sticks of 2 inch white PVC and cut them in two so you have 20 sticks that you can leave all around the working area to pick up and drop as needed, you would discover that you can work he cattle much easier than from on top of a walkway. For tightly packed animals, getting on top of them to give shots or grab a tail to move something is handy. However, I think you are going to want to move your stock by letting it maintain some distance between animals... thus, being able to reach out an additional 5 feet into a pen and goose something into moving will be very handy.

Net... I think you are moving toward a very handy operation.... now, a suggestion. With your designed pen setup firmly in mind, SIMULATE numerous operations and cattle behaviour... do this with somebody who knows cattle... you close your eyes and are the person working the stock. See the pens from ground level in your mind and walk into them as you would working stock. The other person takes the position of one of more head and describes how they are behaving.

Take several scenarios of working cows, calves (100 lbs then 400 lbs), your prize bull, an injured animal. ... take each one all the way from getting the animal/herd into the first pen, sorted as necessary, then thru the chute, worked and then turned out again to pasture. Have your buddy be a docile animal, then a wild one, then a mad one, then a wiley one. Talk it thru in lots of steps.... can you reach the fence and jump up out of the way when need be (if not, maybe adjustments are needed to pen size, where you were standing, something)

How do you get the gates open, shut, where are the tools placed for vaccination, where is the rope for tying up one hoof, where do you keep the nose pliars...and tie it off. What do you do when an animal rears up or attempts to jump out of the pen (are the pens high enough to hold it, or does it escape). Can you work the stock all by yourself, or does it take two or three people to be safe in managing all the gates, etc... Remember, it's easier to lead a cow with a feed bucket into a pen (up to a point) than drive them. Where do you keep the feed, the buckets?

Now, don't break out in too much of a sweat in this simulation... but I bet that it'll expose some things and demonstrate some things that you can adjust to before you build stuff... for example... which way a gate swings and whitch side it latches on makes a difference. As does the latch mechanism... chains or slide bar.. or ?? Each has its benefits or problems in strength or speed/certainty of closing.

 

[srsu99]

Hey spivy, herded the longhorn bulls into a pen on our side and called the owner and asked him to pick it up and not put it back next door. He was obliging. He is no longer leasing next to us which suits me just fine. He always over grazed and thats why his cattle came to our side. Funny ours never went over there. That particular ranch only has about 150 pairs on 10000 acres of grass. Lets just say there is plenty for them to eat. We intentionally understock that particular ranch in case we drought out somewhere else we have a place to go with the cows. Sometime I move 500 or so calves over to that 10000 acre place in the spring to ween and put some meet on them. It is our best ranch and has all new fences. Also it is about 30 miles from the main ranch so calves cant here there moms. Usually works out pretty good. Watch out for those electric fences they can sure start a good grass fire!

 

[texasjohn]

There are two kinds of electric fences...

Weed Burners... yep, they CAN cause fires... DON'T USE THEM.

High Impedence, high voltage, short duration pulse chargers... these DO NOT start fires although weeds and grass can and do grow right up thru the wires and the pulse travels on down the fence... can take a trememdous weed load and still turn stock... just prove it to yourself... touch it.

 

[srsu99]

Or relieve yourself on it. Wonder if anyone has really ever done that?

 

[Spiveyman]

That PVC idea is golden. I haven't bought them yet as we haven't started working them, but that is a must for me.

When I laid out the pens I used a program that actually lets me swing the gates open and closed. Doing that kind of like you suggested just with me I already made some changes to my original design, moved gates to different hinge points... etc. I'm sure there are still some bugs in the design, but I'll have to keep working on it to find them. I really appreciate the scenario of the cow/calf deal. That could have bitten us. One thing about Longhorns, they don't seem to mind to jump. Ours are very tall, and athletic. You know, since they aren't carrying around all the extra meat that the Angus animals have. So height of the pens is a big deal to us as well as the ability to withstand some "climbing" and not just fall apart. However, I am sincerely hoping that by using the techniques you mentioned in the other thread of conditioning to think "food is at the end of this maze" we will avoid some of that behavior. I want them calm and comfy as can be in there. One good thing though, is that this whole thing is still enclosed all around. Worst case a bull goes nuts and busts out, he'll wind up in a fenced in pasture which hopefully will allow the animal to calm down. We won't have to run down the road after the thing.

Very good point about the location of the grain. Should we enclose an area to hold a barrel with grain in it? Also the exit strategy - that is one thing we've thought about, making sure we can get out if we need to in a hurry. I don't mind the sweat factor of thinking through this. I'd rather do it now than when we've got a big bull in the alley.

Another thing we learned the hard way this last time we took a bull in for slaughter - don't let your gates just rest on the pins. The slaughter house has two solid steel panels in concrete in a V shape where you unload, and a very heavy (sched 40) gate on hinges to use to squeeze them as you unload. This has worked very well so far, until this last time. The bull couldn't get his horns through the gate at first, so he tried to back up be we closed the sliding gate on the trailer so he was penned in. Then he lowered his head to check it out, got a horn through the sched 40 gate and just lifted that thing off the hinges like it was made from balsa wood. We about freaked. My partner jumped across the chute there and put his feet on the gate to keep it between the bull and freedom. I grabbed his tail twisted and pulled for all I was worth back over the bulls spine and luckily he just walked on in where he was supposed to go. Moral for us, always secure the gates on the hinges if you are going to use them that way.

 

[Spiveyman]

srsu99, that undergrazing thing has saved our tails this year. Actually we're making out like bandits because we have the grass and are able to buy some really nice bulls for about half what we paid for them last year!

As for peeing on the electric fence, I saw something almost as bad. When we were kids, I was swimming in a pond with my brother and an uncle that was about our ages. When we got out I crawled under the electric fence as I was too short to step over it safely. My brother being 3 years older than me and wanting to look like a big kid decided to step over. Problem was, he was still dripping. Just about the time he was straddled with very little breathing room a string of water dripping off the inside of his leg made contact. ZAP! Then another drip, ZAP. That wire started jumping around between his legs popping him real good. I laughed my butt off because of all the times they'd gotten me shocked! I still laugh at my brother over that one, but then he reminds me of the time we were going frog gigging and he gigged me in the Achilles tendon! Farm stories....