Saturday, September 16, 2017

Summer 2017

I haven't wrote anything since last spring.  We has less rain in western South Dakota than last year.  Last year we were designated D3 drought by July 4 this year it took till July 27 to get the D3 designation.  We are then eligible for feed assistance for our livestock.  As soon as were eligible we ordered lamb feed so we could wean the lambs from the ewes and feed them better in the lot.  The lambs would access to better water, which helps them more than anything.  The cows have grazed every pasture we have, even our winter grazing.  We will sell calves a month earlier than usual so the calves will be lighter in weight.  The calf market has picked up a little from earlier in the year.

We sold two hundred lambs in July.  Much earlier than usual.  The lambs were only three months old on dry pasture on weighed 68 pounds.  It downpoured rain in Newell that day and flooded the auction ring.

Here are lambs walking through the water to get into the ring.  The water just run like a river through the auction ring.

We have vaccinated the calves with fall shots so they are pre-conditioned for sale day.


The cattle chute has a scale under it so we can weigh each calf.  The early calves weighed good, some over 600 pounds the later calves lighter.

We ordered a load of cattle cake.  cake is a compressed grain mixture that can be fed on the ground.
The other day when we fed cake it was soo smokey from the fires burning to the west.


You can hardly see to the second ridge over.  Maybe a mile and a half.  The smoke adds to the gloom of the day.  The air temperature was in the mid ninetys  for the last week and smokey.

We sold lambs last week in Newell.   The lamb market dropped over $10 per hundred weight since last weeks sale.  It looks as if it will continue to drop.

It did rain here yesterday.  .27"   so stayed cloudy and cool  which is better than hot and dry.

It snowed in Montana so should help the fire situation out there.

2 comments:

  1. What are your typical calf weaning weights and what age do you wean? Just curious.I Speak Cow

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  2. We run two calving bunches. One are born starting mid-March the other starts late April. Normally we sell calves late October. This year because of the drought we sold early October. We Sell steer calves then wean the heifer calves shortly after, The early calves weighed 570 and the May calves the heavy cut weighed 536 with more light ones down in the 450's.

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