Spray and Pray
#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk
Bulls, as it turns out, are capable of moving in an agreeable fashion. I learned this on Monday, when we gathered sixty some bulls from the bull pasture and moved them across the road to the pens for sorting and medicating (doctoring, in cowboy terms). After we administered footrot prevention medication to every bull, we separated them into a couple different groups by pasture and loaded them into the cattle truck. Within the truck they were kept separate by some rather handy doors. After that, everyone else went to scatter the bulls in their pre-ordained pastures while Patrick and I headed to the shop to pull the radiator out of my car to send to a radiator shop in town—I had hit a racoon the night before and now the Kia was leaking what looked like coolant.
Once we managed to wrestle the radiator out, we sent it with my host to get it checked. When she came back with the good news that it wasn’t my radiator, but most likely my air condenser (confirmed by a visual inspection), we put the radiator back in and called it a day.
The next day found us gathering the Thompson and Mile Long Draw pastures. In case you’re wondering, the name isn’t an exaggeration—that draw really is a mile long. We moved them into the pasture at the base of the draw so they would be ready to spray with insecticide the next morning—a task that would have been avoided had our oilers from the week before been up and running.
Wednesday, as planned, consisted of gathering and spraying cattle, where I received yet another crash course in sorting large clumps of cattle in a tight pen as we removed the neighbor’s steers from our own herd. We then attempted to push the cattle to water, but they weren’t paired up to begin the day and the spraying had sent them into further disarray, and before we knew it we were chasing too many calves to do much more than just hold them. My host decided our best bet was to just leave them and let them sort on their own and push them in the morning, a job I would unfortunately miss as I spent the remainder of the week attending a wedding in Minnesota.
My big takeaway from this week is the importance of oilers. Not having them spread a one-morning movement over three days. Oilers, by the way, keep the flies off the cattle, promoting weight gain, disease management, and comfort. If you can afford it, you should absolutely have a couple to move around on the ranch—what’s good for the cattle is better for you and your bottom line.
Submitted by: Leigh Stockton
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
