Fall 2021

Well, so much for a Fall blog post during Fall. That is about par for the course. Welcome to my life! I always have such good intentions of getting things accomplished and then something always comes up. Hey, better late than never!

Fall was filled with harvest, weaning, and preg checking. This was also our first fall delivering beef to our customers (more on this in a later post). Between chopping silage, baling hay and combining corn and milo the guys kept themselves busy. Harvest takes up the majority of fall, besides a few cattle chores. Most of the crops we raise on the farm are used to feed the cattle during the winter months.

This year we weaned twice. Once in September and again the first part of November. We had a couple of calves born during the summer, so they stayed with their mothers a little longer. We had a successful weaning season with all the calves staying healthy and adapting well to eating out of the bunks. The calves and momma cows are always upset during this time, but they settle down after a few days. Weaning is so important for both the calf and the cow. The calf needs more nutrition than just its mother’s milk at this age and the cow needs time to rest and recover before their next calf is born.

Hawk and Eragon

In November, we brought all the cows home for preg checking. This is when you find out if your bulls did any work or not. We were incredibly happy with how well the cows bred back. We only had two cows come in open this fall. One was an old girl, Fergie, who was pregnant in June, but must have lost her calf during the summer. The other was Wren. She had a calf during the summer, so she had to get bred back on her first cycle. We shortened the breeding period this year, which means you could lose some cows, because they do not cycle back fast enough to get bred. Having only one cow not breed back speaks numbers to the Belted Galloway breed and their fertility. It also means Eragon, Hank and Hawk got their work done this summer.

Eragon has truly become a phenomenal herd bull. He breeds every cow he is in with. 100% his first two years on the job here. Along with that, his calm demeanor and sweet personality have pretty much guaranteed him a lifetime career at Witte Belted Beef.

Hank

This was Hank’s first year on the job. He only had one job to do this summer and he got it done. Kitty cow is due in April. I asked my niece and nephew, if Hank and Kitty have a calf what we are going to name it. 2022 is “K” names, so I said it must start with the letter K. They put their names together and came up with Kinky. Lol! I guess if it is a girl, we will have a Kinky heifer and if it is a boy, we will have Kinky beef. Those two always make me laugh!

Hawk, the red yearling bull, had the hardest job this year. He was the youngest of the bulls and I gave him the two cows that calved during the summer. He had to get them bred back on their first cycle. He was 50%. He bred Tara, so she will have a calf in May (hopefully a red one) and Wren gets to take this year off. We will breed her again this spring.

At the end of December, we moved all the belts home. We anticipate we will have our first little belted baby calves running around the end of January. We are excited to see what the 2022 calving season brings!