After helping dad feed the calves this morning, he told me to go inside and get a piece of paper to write down numbers. I have 11 heifers and I will only keep five of those to grow my herd. The others will be sold. Even though I'm in my 30s, this is the first time I've actually been the one that makes the decision (ok, my boyfriend also helped me today). This is also the largest my herd has ever been, so there was more to choose from.
See the tiny one hiding between the other ones? That's not one I am going to keep.
Number 208 is more what I'm looking for. Pretty good looking heifer.
This is my highly official paper I was writing on.
Hmmm....can you guess which ones will get kept out of this picture?
In all my years of competing at livestock judging contests (and being a complete and nervous wreck when preparing for the "reasons" part of it), I didn't really ever think it would do me a ton of good. It has helped me more than I ever thought. It gave me a good idea of what a good calf looks like and what characteristics I would like to have in my cattle herd.
Today it wasn't too in-depth. Basically, I was looking for the healthiest heifer calves. This has been a rough year because of the drought so we have weaned the calves almost two months early. That means they are no longer being fed by their moms, so they have to be able to maintain their nutrition on their own from whatever we are feeding them. In some cases it was an obvious choice that I didn't want to keep one of the calves because they were so scrawny. Other times it was basically a matter of opinion, but I think I'm pretty content with my choices.
So, if my herd doesn't do well in the next few years, it is ENTIRELY my fault....feels good to be a grown-up ;-)
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