the second day of weaning, the steer and heifer calves will be going opposite directions next week. Steers weighing 700 pounds will go to town and then onto a feedlot before your plate. The heifers will be sorted to their own pasture until our weaning is complete, and from them we’ll select our replacement heifers to hopefully enjoy a long and productive life on the ranch.
This morning, the fourth day of weaning, we, and the Kubota with alfalfa hay, have replaced their mothers completely. Perhaps the gentlest bunch of calves we’ve ever raised, they’ve known us since they were born and have no reason to distrust us.
drycrikjournal 
Darn – there’s no advantage in being born a male any more!
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We all tend to be proud of our steer calves, weighing 40-50 lbs. more, but we’re in the cow-calf business where maternal traits count more towards improving our herd of cows. The scale tips to the females on this ranch.
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Its sad though.
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It is, of course. We harvest grass with cattle that convert it to protein, when it rains, to feed humans and to raise more calves. Our operation is humane, without hormone implants and with a minimal use of antibiotics, perhaps one or two head annually that would have probably died otherwise. Life and death are commonplace in the wild surroundings of this ranch where one is either predator or prey. These calves will feed a lot of people.
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You are a brave man.
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We don’t like to think of what our steak was before it was our steak! Post some of your calves please :0)
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I’m not sure whether you’re serious or not, Tina. If you want to see cute babies, plug “calves” into this blog’s search engine. It’s all about motherhood — better that they be cute than ugly, better to be a heifer than a bull or a steer.
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THose back ends in the 1st pic, sure put any of those TV Kardashians to shame
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Believe it or not, Richard, I wouldn’t recognize a Kardashian in a pen full of cattle — just not on my radar, but we’ll take the compliment regardless.
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Yum – flank steak!
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Better it comes from a fat young calf than a tough old bull.
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That could well be a parable, John.
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Not often your blog gets this much dialogue. I’m impressed weaning weights following another low rainfall winter. A friend from north county commented it isn’t about how much rain, it’s about when it rains.
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Absolutely, John, timing is the key. The grass got off to a great start with 2″ at the first of November, then 3″ in the middle of December, cows milking well and calves really fat. Also it was a warm winter. The rest of our season wasn’t much in terms of rain, but the feed was strong under stress. Rainfall statistics can be misleading, and not necessarily tied to the productivity of the ground or the grass. For cattle, it’s been a good year!
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That’s what I was hoping to hear
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