September was a beautiful month for harvesting. We finished harvest Sept. 25. There were a few minor repairs to be done on the machines throughout the season, but nothing kept us down for long.
The following day, Gregory and I were able to go around the fence on the home half. There were quite a few broken wires, but we were able to turn a few horses out to graze later that day. They have been thinking their pasture was getting short for a while, so they were very happy to stretch their legs and find nicer places to graze.
Sept. 27 we set out to see if we could load four of our sale steers from a pasture that has no corrals or loading facility. Our cows are pretty quiet, so we took all of our panels, a couple of horses and a few pails of chop to see if we could separate the steer calves in order to take them to the sale. We set the panels up in the south corner of the pasture and then rode out and brought the cows to the makeshift corral. Gregory fed them oats chop to reward them for coming in and to keep them quiet as we rearranged the panels to make a smaller pen to load from. We sorted the cows off and the keeper heifers and then loaded the steers.
Read Also
Beef demand drives cattle and beef markets higher
Prices for beef cattle continue to be strong across the beef value chain, although feedlot profitability could be challenging by the end of 2025, analyst Jerry Klassen says.
Cattle sorted for sale
We are so happy with our new stock trailer, especially when we set out on jobs such as these. The trailer is long enough that once one steer jumped on, the others followed and were on the trailer before the first one turned around to come back out. With the steers loaded, we loaded our horses behind and came home. We put the steers in the corral and gave them feed and water in order to have them ready for shipping day.
The next day, we loaded the steers and my horse and headed over to our pasture at Landis. The cows were scattered all over the pasture, but they came to the corral nicely. We were able to sort off the sale animals and then get everything loaded without too much trouble. Gregory, Joseph, James and I then headed to Provost to deliver the calves to the sale barn. Ian was able to stay home with Grandma and Grandpa.
It rained for the next few days afterward. We weren’t able to do any baling or cut any slough hay, so Gregory took the opportunity to look at and purchase a JD 8820 combine one day and on the next he and John spent the day taking parts off of a parts machine for the JD 9600.
We celebrated our Thanksgiving early and had a family supper on Saturday, Oct.7. One of Gregory’s sisters brought a big pumpkin that her kids had grown, so the cousins were able to have fun cleaning it out and carving it together.
I separated the mares and foals and started the weaning process on Oct. 10. It will be quite noisy around here for a few days as the foals loudly protest and the mares quietly accept the process once again.
