Working cattle without me?

Tyler and I are home! Just two short weeks after having a liver transplant, my son is doing very well. He is recuperating from a huge abdominal surgery and working to stabilize the immunosuppressant medicines that he will take for the rest of his life. But he is doing great! Thanks for all the prayers.
While we were in the hospital, it was time to pregnancy check our bred heifers. These are the young cows who are pregnant with their first calf. Right now, the American cow herd is at an all-time low. Which means there are fewer cows out there than any other time in recent history. Those numbers are beginning to come back, but it is hard to justify keeping your heifers to raise and put back into your herd, when prices at weaning time are crazy high! The supply of beef is also at a low and the American appetite still wants beef...so you are seeing higher prices in the grocery store.

In order to combat that shortage, people like us are raising heifers and selling them as bred heifers ready to calve for the ranchers who want to keep their herd productive. So we had scheduled with the veterinarian to come on September 6 to pregnancy check 165 bred heifers. Tyler was still in the hospital and I was not about to leave him. So we supervised from afar.
I am the one who usually gets everything organized from ordering the vaccine, scheduling the vet, cooking and packing the lunch, doing the paperwork at the pasture, giving the shots and generally keeping everything together! Wellllllll, I think my husband has a new appreciation for all I do! He called a number of times asking where things were kept or how to do certain things in advance of the actual working day. And, he took the crew to eat at the local cafe/bar instead of having a homecooked picnic lunch at the pasture.

I know things went well, and I wasn't worried that they would forget anything. It was hard to not be there, though, as I love working cattle! But we all got through the day and the heifers are now listed for sale!
While we were gone for Tyler's surgery, Roo the cowdog had a sleepover at a neighbor's house. My friend took her to hang out with her family's farm dog. Roo seemed to love the new friend, but when the crew arrived to start work at the pasture, Roo came running! The pasture is near my friend's house. So my husband took Roo home with him as she was soooo excited to see her family! At this point, Duane was spending at least every other night back home and driving to Kansas City to be with us off and on. So Roo was happy to be back home.

Now we are all home to recuperate and Roo is back to being the spoiled cowdog that she was before!

6 comments:

  1. So glad to read your son is doing well and things are starting to settle back into their normal ways!!

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  2. That is good news about your son and him being home, that always makes one feel better. It makes you feel good when a husband sees just what you do around the place. I know my husband knows I keep a lot of things behind the scenes done that he never thinks about but he is a very hard worker and deserves to have the little things done for him. Prayers for your family, great news about Tyler.

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  3. So glad to hear Tyler is home and doing well. We have a friend whose daughter had a liver transplant and is also taking those drugs. She had the transplant when she was 3 and is a teenager now and still going strong. Wish we could buy your heifers! We are expanding but not having heifers fast enough! Glad things went well with the preg checks, and yes, once in a while our husbands get a glimpse of what we do!

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  4. I know when I was sick all I wanted to do was go home and help around the ranch! The bred heifer industry is incredible this year! We preg check ours tomorrow and ours are listed for sale as well. Hope your heifers sell well!

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  5. I am very glad your son is doing well. You are in my thoughts as I have a best friend who went through a kidney transplant a few years ago. Thank you for all you do in our industry. As a beef farmer from NJ I have merely heard about the hardships that farmers out West are having with their herds with cattle numbers being so low. It is great to see that we are resilient and coming up with new ways to keep our industry alive through bred heifer sales.

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  6. Great article thanks! Hope everything improves even more!

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