Weaning is a time of extreme stress for both dam and calf. In most commercial operations, calves are completely separated from dams. Often placed directly on a truck to a feedlot or into "backgrounding" pens, they are then conditioned to eat from a feed bunker and water trough. Unfamiliar feed, …
A typical spring week running a cattle ranch.
You might think running Alderspring Ranch is about rural bliss: kicking back with a tall, cool lemonade, watching kids play in the spring sun, listening to bees buzzing in the apple trees. Unfortunately, we don't have much time to kick back in the spring! Here's what we did last …
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New Calves – the Start of Grassfed Beef for 2010
Spring on the ranch is the busiest time of year! Fields are being readied for spring, fences being mended, irrigation systems are upgraded, and new calves are being born daily (we are averaging 5 new babies a day). They take a large amount of time as we carefully monitor their health, as well as …
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Muffins by Mae Worth Getting Out of Bed For
Nine year old Mae likes to make muffins on Saturday morning. As those beautiful corn and buckwheat muffins rolled out of the tins, I had just come back from checking cows (had two new babies before sunup) and fixing fence (they had gotten out and were eating my brand new crested wheatgrass …
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Goats in the Living Room, Calves in the Bathtub
We have goats in the living room. Kid goats that were just born a little weak and cold today in this cold, windy, wintery blast we are having in April. Kid goats and 7 kid girls on the living room carpet by the wood stove with the kid girls trying to coax the kid goats into standing and trying to …
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Feeding Cows on the Night Shift
Got home real late from Salmon, ID, which happens to be our shipping location for UPS. I drove an hour one way down the twisty Salmon River canyon to get those boxes on the truck only to find out that the grocery store, our dry ice supplier, does not have enough to fill our orders. The ice truck …