Loud Cows

So, as promised, here's my follow-up to Saturday's post about my cows. We did what's called "weaning and vaccinating." We vaccinate for things called "Black Leg," "Foot Rot," and "Lump Jaw." All pretty self-explanatory as you read them....

First you have to go out to the fields and get the cows. For some reason, our cows were OUT OF CONTROL on Saturday and were running all over the frickin countryside. In the end, I ended up herding most of them while my husband, father in law, and grandpa chased ONE cow. Score: Nicole-200 cows, Men-1 cow. Yes, I'm awesome. Here's a picture of the bulls I had to chase in. Side note: What a beautiful day!!! And my Blackberry takes AWESOME pictures!



We split the baby calves from their mothers. Don't think this is a sad thing, cause by this time the cute little 100 pound babes are now 400 pound monsters. They starting to get big and ugly and VERY smelly. We put them into a pen by themselves.


Then we line them up in the chutes to get vaccinated. Below is grandpa poking the calves while they're in the chute.

Then, we have to separate the heifers and steers to see how many we have. My mother in law keeps track of our numbers. There's my hubby on the left...cute butt, huh? :)


Then we have to separate out the ones that we want to keep, and the ones that we want to sell. Here, my father in law is deciding which ones he wants to keep. This stick he has is plastic and the end has beads in it that make it sound like a rattle. It helps us control the cows.


The ones we do keep, just get sent out to pasture. The ones we sell have to stay in the lot. And they are LOUD because they miss their mothers. Here's another group of cows we took to market. The big bull in the front just looks MEAN...he's not, they all look that way. The big one in the back is the one we'll be butchering soon....and more on THAT to come!