Hi I’m Mike, anytime we try something new on the ranch there is always a learning curve
and I’m sure today will be no different as we get a chance today to put the arrowquip
chute, alley and tub system through its paces, but not exactly in the way we hoped, maybe
in a smaller scale, on our Wyoming life.
Welcome back and thanks for joining again and if this is your first time, I am glad
you found us.
We have a small family ranch here in northeast Wyoming, about 5000 acres, and yes, that’s
a small ranch in Wyoming.
We lucked out and found you on YouTube and we have been lucky enough to share our story
over the last couple of years.
If you haven’t had a chance to get the back story, on how we ended up here on the ranch
and the weird twists life can make, I hope you take a minute, go back on our channel
and watch some our story, what you find, might just surprise you, and if you like what you
see, please subscribe and come along with us as we explore the ranch life and escape
the ordinary.
We are basically a cow calf operation, we have a breeding herd, each year calves are
born and we do the best we can for them until its time to sell them into the food distribution
system, where they leave the ranch, head to feed lots, processors and eventually, yes,
grocery stores.
This is where the calves begin their lives, and I like to think this is where they spend
the best part of their lives, with their moms, and with us, watching over their shoulders,
giving care and aide where needed.
Normally at this time of year, the calves would already be gone, we ship calves off
the middle of October, but with calf prices the way they are, and with the increased input
that we had to make this year, in the form of having to buy hay for their moms, over
50 thousand dollars worth, this is going to sound weird to some, but we can’t afford
to sell calves right now.
The ranch is like any other business, and selling something for less than you have into
it doesn’t make much sense.
So we are holding on to calves, and two weeks ago we weaned the calves from their moms.
I’m happy to say that went really well, we didn’t have a single calf get sick, we
didn’t lose any and calves and moms have stopped bawling, pretty much.
The day the bawling stopped was a nice day, for us and neighbors up to a mile away that
could hear moms and babies, but now in the silence, its time to get then calves ready
for the next stage in their weaning experience.
Our goal today is to weigh and vaccinate all of the calves.
Weigh them to start sorting and figuring out who needs what kind of diet in order to get
them to the weight where they may actually be worth selling, and vaccinations to help
get them through this experience.
In a perfect world, you would vaccinate before you weaned your calves, and by waiting until
now we were kind of playing with fire, but calves are healthy and before weather starts
to get cold we want to boost their immune system a bit.
In order to get this done today, we have to do a bit of work on the corrals.
Our corrals are really becoming what I like to refer to a franken corrals, named after
Frankenstein, who put together mismatched parts and ended up with a working moster,
although a little deranged.
Our corrals are much the same way, they are really starting to work for us, no the other
way around, even though they are a bit ugly.
We have a weird cross of wood, sheet metal, panels, and of course a big beautiful brand
new arrowquip portable chute, alley and tub right in the middle of it.
We received the system from arrowquip in exchange for testing and we have done things that I
am not sure this thing was meant to do, mainly slam it into our existing corrals, turning
a portable system into a semi permanent system.
When we last left our corrals we were still looking at how to tie this whole thing together
and get the cows, for preg checking this year, in to the arrowquip.
Plans have changed and now we are going to be vaccinating and weighing calves, so our
time frame has been accelerated a bit.
More panels are what we need, and we can start moving our heavy panels into the corral to
go from a gate in our center pen, into the arrowquip.
The calves will move up this alley, into the tub, where they will be introduced into the
alley and chute, hopefully.
Theres a lot of guess work going on here, I don’t design corrals, there are much smarter
people than I that do that, but I can fumble my way through figuring out how a cow moves.
Calves however, you can’t predict a calf, they, like teenagers, do what they want, and
consequences be damned.
With a calf, the best you can do is make a suggestion and hope it works.
Once panels are in place, then we can try to figure out the scale.
This is going to be a bit tricky and may not work.
My platform scale is good up to 600 pounds.
All we have to do is put it where a calf will stand on it.
We use it during branding but in this configuration, there is no place that a single calf is confined
to a small enough area.
Our only hope is to place it in the alley and try to get them to stand on it, but its
not looking good.
The big trick today is that I am out here by myself.
More often than not I am working solo.
In fact, when we designed our corral system originally one of the requirements was that
I be able to work cattle by myself.
Having help out here is a luxury, and one that we don’t often have.
At the same time, we want to be safe, especially when working alone and our current corrals,
at least in their old configuration made that impossible.
There was no way to work cattle alone, which made doctoring, preg checking and even vaccinations
that much harder.
Now with the arrowquip system, we are hoping to be able to not only be safe, but be able
to work more independently and when needed, not relying on help and extra bodies.
I actually like working alone sometimes, its freeing and its relaxing.
It gives me a chance to bond with the animals and learn from them.
As we move the calves into the pens, where they will stay while waiting for their turn
in the chute, it’s a connection with the animals that is hard to explain.
Our set up is pretty easy today.
We have a small table with a notebook for keeping count, a syringe for vaccine and our
scale.
By the way, when you are outside, forget the pen, especially in the cold but even the dirt
will screw it up, go old school, the good ole #2, good for tests, throwing at your friends
and can still write while covered in manure.
Before we know it though, its time for the moment of truth, and time for the first group
of calves to try out our system.
Even with the first calf, my scale is a dismal failure.
Its almost impossible to get the calf to stand on it and any weight is going to be unrealiable.
Good news is, that when you get the calves close up to each other like this, its easy
to see how uniform they are in size, this is a good thing.
We have a few that are a bit smaller and a couple that are bigger but overall, they look
pretty close.
That doesn’t mean we don’t have to weigh them eventually but we don’t have to do
it today.
Running this thing by myself, I have to say, I was a little worried.
But aside from climbing the panels over and over again to move more calves in, it runs
pretty smooth.
Its quiet, which is really nice and when the calves cooperate, you can get a good rhythm
going.
The arm that you use to open and close the head catch moves along the length of the chute
and once I figure out that you can stand at the end of the chute and catch their heads
from the back, things got a lot easier.
Moving forward to give the calves their vaccination.
This chute and alley is thousands times better than what I have ever run on the ranch in
the past.
I can’t take all the fun for myself and soon the whole crew shows up to give a hand
and everyone gets a turn at what they do best.
In a little less than 2 hours, we
ran over 130 calves through the new tub, corral and chute, 70 of those, I did all by myself,
and without even breaking a sweat.
Working at the pace I wanted to, and what I felt safe doing.
Heres the thing, for years we had an unsafe method of working cows and calves on the ranch,
having a new system shows me how easy and safe it can be, and I’m not just talking
about arrowquip, in all brands, no matter what you prefer, the technology behind corrals,
tubs, alleys and chutes has made a huge stride forward in the past few years.
All brands are safer and work quieter, keeping cows calm and making your life easier.
Even if you can’t afford a system like this, there are tiny things you can take from it
and hopefully use in your own systems, if you notice, cows can see all the way through,
this keeps them moving forward, it’s a simple thing like that, that might be missing from
your system and making it harder to work with.
If I would have known that years ago, I would have figured out how to get a chute like this
a long time ago.
Now I look back at all the times I fought cows and calves and I really just shake my
head.
As kids give up on us and head back to the house, Erin and I finish up the last few,
before the last calf goes through and we can call it a day.
And all the calves can head on home, back to their corrals.
The calves are back where they are supposed to be, we have successfully vaccinated almost
every calf, we did have those few that shot through but that part of that learning curve
I talked about.
Even while working all by myself, I have never had a better time working calves.
I am used to yelling and screaming, honestly by the time we are done, I usually have a
headache and don’t want to talk to anyone.
Today, was a completely different experience.
I have never had the kids that close while working cows or calves, and I think I can
attribute a lot of the calmness and easy going of the day directly to arrowquip.
This corral system, although their portable system, smaller than a normal system, worked
great with the calves.
The scale didn’t work as planned but that’s ok.
I’ll figure out some way to get it in there and in the meantime, we have a safe and practical
way to work our calves.
Which I am sure we are going to do again.
The next big test for the arrowquip system is coming up when we preg check, which is
just around the corner, in a little over 2 two weeks, so if you are going to be in the
area around the 19th, let me know, maybe we can put you to work.
Thanks once again, be sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss a day from the ranch,
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That’s it for me today, I have some clean up to do but we have some happy and healthy
calves and I am proud to be a part of that.
Thanks for watching, have a great week and thank you for being a part of Our Wyoming
Life.