The weather has been hot and humid but we were still able
to accomplish quite a bit this past week. On our blog last week we highlighted
a water tank replacement project at our Phiefle unit. Last Thursday we put the
new tank to work, when we moved our bred replacement heifers from our West
Ranch to the Phiefle. The walk was
around 5 miles for the heifers and we started early in the morning to try to get
the majority of the move before the hottest part of the day. Here are some
pictures from the drive:



We stopped the heifers at a slough to cool off midway through the drive.

Our canine helpers really appreciated the cooling off as well!


The heifers all moved into the new pasture.

The dogs enjoyed one last cool off before the Ranger ride home.

This past Friday we pulled the bulls out of the spring calving cows. To do this we set up two centrally located portable working facilities. We drove each of the small breeding groups to the closest working facility to their particular pasture. Then we drove the whole bunch into the portable corrals. Once there we poured all of the cows with fly control and split the bull away from the cows. The bull was then loaded up and the cows were let out into a nearby pasture. When we were done we had all of the bulls back at headquarters and two large bunches of freshly poured pairs!
On Monday we had Dr. Dean Christanson and his team from the Ashley Vet Clinic out to ultrasound the bred replacement heifers. We built a working facility at the Phiefle unit with our portable chute/alley and our OK Corral. Caleb and Skylar helped push heifers through the chute/alley and into the portable hydraulic chute that the vets bring for ultrasounding. Here are the pictures:

Dr. Christianson ultrasounds while vet tech Amanda analyzes the ultrasound images. Amanda also ran the hydrualic chute and poured the heifers with fly control.


Skylar and Caleb working the chute and alley.

We were happy with the ultrasounding results. The guys did a great job getting the heifers synchronized and bred, and the bulls also did a great job with only a 30 day natural service breeding period. The open heifers will be re-bred to join the summer calving cowherd.