Since my last post there has been a disappointing injury to one of our stud colts. A week after they were put out with the rest of the herd, Mitch was up early and heard the coyotes howling. This is something that happens regularly and he will normally shine the spotlight out the window and the howling will quit. On this particular morning they started right back up again. He got back up and shined the light again and saw several sets of eyes in the bottom and the outline of one of the foals. At first he thought it was all the babies. After a bit of searching he found the babies in the spotlight up close to the house. He went out and did some looking and found Jet was in shock after having been tangled in the fence and was just frozen in place and shivering. Mitch came and woke me up and we went out to get him in the barn and called the vet.
There were bite marks in Jet's hocks from where the coyotes had bitten him and there were some pretty serious cuts on his hind legs from the fence. The vet came out and we treated him for shock and cleaned up his wounds. He is still healing up, it's going incredibly slow. We are not sure what caused him to go into the fence, since they had only been with the entire herd for a week they were not part of the group yet. Their dams did not take them into the fold and protect them from the other horses that the foals had not been turned out with yet. So it could have been an accident that one of the horses put him into the fence or he could have been run into it by the coyotes. We are still hoping he will heal up and be sound, but only time will tell.
Some very valuable lessons were learned with this experience. Next year we will turn the foals out with their dams only for a while before we put them with the rest of the herd. I think that will help reduce the time it takes for them to become part of the bigger herd. We really need them to be able to be together for the winter months so we can open up all the pastures and they can get protection from the wind at any direction.
We brought the cattle in and vaccinated them in late September, weaned the heifers we are keeping back and sold the steers in November at Bloomington Livestock Exchange. We added a large section of wooden fencing behind the roping boxes early this year and have a more permanent set up. These improvements made the work go much more smoothly. We still struggle with only having one barn that is a multipurpose barn for us. It is set up so we can move corral panels and make it versatile which is fantastic. But it is hard because weaning calves in the barn means no way to bring the horses in. Hopefully we will be able to put up another building in the next few years. Then we can have one dedicated to cattle, hay storage and equipment and the other to horses and an indoor round pen that will give us an opportunity to ride at home year round.
We were also fortunate enough to get a few days away. We just got back from the NFR in Las Vegas. It was a great vacation and we really enjoyed ourselves. It was great to meet some new friends and catch up with some old ones, we did some Christmas shopping and spend some time relaxing. Of course, true to form - I came home with a nasty head cold. It has become a joke in our family about who will get sick on the vacation, my husband or myself. This year it was my turn to be the one not feeling well. It was great to see Nick Guy from Wisconsin win the first round in steer wrestling! We continue to cheer for him and hope to see him win big.
This weekend we will be going to find our Christmas tree and prepare for the upcoming holidays. I'm looking forward to the holidays this year and hope you are too!
There were bite marks in Jet's hocks from where the coyotes had bitten him and there were some pretty serious cuts on his hind legs from the fence. The vet came out and we treated him for shock and cleaned up his wounds. He is still healing up, it's going incredibly slow. We are not sure what caused him to go into the fence, since they had only been with the entire herd for a week they were not part of the group yet. Their dams did not take them into the fold and protect them from the other horses that the foals had not been turned out with yet. So it could have been an accident that one of the horses put him into the fence or he could have been run into it by the coyotes. We are still hoping he will heal up and be sound, but only time will tell.
Some very valuable lessons were learned with this experience. Next year we will turn the foals out with their dams only for a while before we put them with the rest of the herd. I think that will help reduce the time it takes for them to become part of the bigger herd. We really need them to be able to be together for the winter months so we can open up all the pastures and they can get protection from the wind at any direction.
We brought the cattle in and vaccinated them in late September, weaned the heifers we are keeping back and sold the steers in November at Bloomington Livestock Exchange. We added a large section of wooden fencing behind the roping boxes early this year and have a more permanent set up. These improvements made the work go much more smoothly. We still struggle with only having one barn that is a multipurpose barn for us. It is set up so we can move corral panels and make it versatile which is fantastic. But it is hard because weaning calves in the barn means no way to bring the horses in. Hopefully we will be able to put up another building in the next few years. Then we can have one dedicated to cattle, hay storage and equipment and the other to horses and an indoor round pen that will give us an opportunity to ride at home year round.
We were also fortunate enough to get a few days away. We just got back from the NFR in Las Vegas. It was a great vacation and we really enjoyed ourselves. It was great to meet some new friends and catch up with some old ones, we did some Christmas shopping and spend some time relaxing. Of course, true to form - I came home with a nasty head cold. It has become a joke in our family about who will get sick on the vacation, my husband or myself. This year it was my turn to be the one not feeling well. It was great to see Nick Guy from Wisconsin win the first round in steer wrestling! We continue to cheer for him and hope to see him win big.
This weekend we will be going to find our Christmas tree and prepare for the upcoming holidays. I'm looking forward to the holidays this year and hope you are too!