Eric Schipporeit measures his words with care. He is a reflective herdsman, who walks the pasture, watching and waiting -- sometimes intervening.
Calving season is in, and he checks the heavy-laden cows, especially when it is cold. The weather dictates how often he has to be out there in the field. The wind is keen and biting today. He checks the cows around the clock at two-hour intervals and less.
He speaks of the calves as if they were his babies. He talks of them getting stressed out in the cold. Freezing rain is the worst. Snow can be shaken off. But the windchill factor might cause several newborn calves to die of exposure.
The stockman looks for lethargy. That is a sure sign a calf is in trouble.
"I have taken them in the pickup with me," he said. "It is important for them to get up right away and eat. Sometimes I warm them up by sticking them in the bathtub."
Sometimes three to four calves are put into a hotbox, which is much like a large, heated doghouse, to keep warm.
Eric keeps an eye on cows that go off by themselves, walking the fence. And he has had some fence crawlers lately.
He watches for the nervous twitch of the tail. The udder that starts filling up.
Eric's father, Alfred, said, "The cow ready to calve gets a long-distance look in her eye."
His son adds, "It takes patience. You wait, and you let the cow do her thing. And if you have to intervene, you do. Patience and progress go hand-in-hand -- the progress the cow is making with the calving. You can't be in a hurry to assist."
Normal calving can be divided into three general stages -- preparatory, fetal expulsion and expulsion of the placenta or afterbirth. The time interval varies with each breed, according to extension specialists Gene H. Deutscher and Donald B. Hudson.
The preparatory stage runs two to six hours, depending on breed. During pregnancy, the fetal calf is normally on its back. Just prior to labor, it rotates to an upright position with its forelegs and head pointed toward the birth canal, in a position providing the least resistance during birth.
Delivery runs one hour or less, depending on breed. Eric said it takes longer for a cow to have a calf in the barn because a cow does not want to be confined during delivery.
The stage begins when the fetus enters the birth canal, and this usually occurs when the cow is lying down. Uterine contractions are now about every two minutes and are accompanied by voluntary contractions of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles.
If the herdsman sees a presentation of hoofs right side up first, then this is normal. The front hoofs, then head come out, followed by the shoulders, the chest and the back legs. Surrounded by membranes, the calf's forelegs and nose first protrude from the vulva. After the nose is exposed, maximum straining pushes the chest and shoulders through the pelvic girdle.
Alfred said the normal calving progress, once the water has broken, is three to four hours to delivery.
"Usually, as long as there is some movement," he said, "everything is going well."
Eric said, "Lots of times, the calf lands on its head."
Normally, it takes only 15 to 20 minutes to clean off the calf.
In stage three, cows normally expel the placenta within two to eight hours. Abnormal positions make it necessary for the herdsman to intervene: that would be a foot, a head and one foot, no head or a tail -- the worst circumstance, because it means a breech birth.
Eric said, "From the time you make the decision you have to do caesarean, it is one and a half hours to the vet. I keep all the tools for a caesarean right here at the ranch: the scalpels, the needles and sutures."
He has done 30 to 40 caesareans in the last 20 years. During the emergency operation, the calf is taken out of the flank of the cow while she is standing up, locked stationery for safety in his calving shed.
The next critical factor is to get the mother to feed the calf when it is born. If that is not possible, to get another cow to take the orphan. The herdsman does this by fooling the cow with black colostrum powder and feeding the calf on a nippled bottle.
Eric said "Calf Claimer" is a by-product with an odor and a distinct taste. He sprinkles some on the hair of the calf and puts some in the cow's mouth. If she starts licking the calf, he has started the process.
Eric can tell by "the body language" of the cow when and if it is going to accept the calf. "The calf has to keep up with the mama before I leave it to the natural process," he said. "If this goes on for four of five days, and the cow is still having trouble with the calf, then it is not going good."
Once the birth cycle has run on the ranch, it is time for May branding. The calves are inoculated, mostly for blackleg and possible respiratory disorders. The young bulls are castrated at that time.
Some ranchers choose to calve in February so that the calves are dropped when the ground is hard. Others believe April is the ideal calving season because the cold has passed.
Eric said, "When cold weather is done, there is a lot less work involved in calving. It is also a lot less labor to calve in the fall, but the mother raises the calf in the winter when it is most stressful for her."
He said some are choosing the fall calving cycle to be able to get better prices at the livestock market.
Cow work slacks off in late summer, but there is always the job of keeping records. Eric keeps intensive records on each and every cow.
The average Angus cow calves for 11 or 12 years, until her teeth are worn.
Weaning comes late in October, usually after a good frost.
Eric places the cows and calves in a small meadow. On the day of weaning, the cows are placed in a corral, while calves remain in the meadow where they last saw their mamas. Apparently, the bawling goes on for days.
By weaning, the 70-to 90-pound calf has grown to 400- to 500-pounds.
Alfred said, "Another reason to wean at that time is to give the cow all her strength for the baby inside. That calf is going to nurse as long as it can, even to the point of running its mother down."
Steers are sold, as well as some heifers. After being fattened three to five months (120 days) in a feedlot, they are ready to go to slaughter.
Alfred said added, "You come to recognize the cows as individuals. Like mother, like daughter. You can hang your hat on that.
During breeding season, cows are segregated from bulls.
Eric genetically engineers his pasture, trying out a variety of bulls and using artificial insemination, weeding out those in the herd with less desirable traits. For cows, he is seeking traits too. He wants them to be docile, maternal and of good disposition, as well as to inherit good carcasses. In 1980, he started creating the lines to get the best traits in his stock into the 20th generation.
He says that birth weight is one trait that cannot be elected. Some calves weigh over 100 pounds at birth, which makes it hard on the cow during delivery.
There are 283 days altogether in a gestation period.
Of course, the work in the pasture never stops.
On a February drive through the pasture, while a heifer is calving, Eric feeds cattle protein pellets along with their corn.
The corn is for energy. The protein pellets take the place of alfalfa. He starts adding them the first of December. He will be mixing them in with the corn until the 10th of May.
Alfred said, "If it takes two cows to make a shadow, you'd better give them more feed."
The whole cycle runs 18 months, from calving to grocery shelf.
Eric said, "The mistakes one makes now are not realized until a year and a half from now."
That is why he is such a careful herdsman. Much of his business is watching the livestock market to see how it fluctuates, depending on weather and futures.
He does find time after calving for hunting upland birds, waterfowl, elk, deer and buffalo, being a member of a hunting club. His two English pointers are Spec and Wendy. He also has a black lab named Jyp.
The Schipporeit Ranch celebrated its centennial year in 1983. The original ranch was 160 homestead acres. The family now ranches about 2,000 acres, as well as leasing other acreage.
Eric's son, Thomas, is 8. That makes the Schipporeit family a fifth generation ranch family.
Eric's first 4-H project was a stocker/feeder calf, a Hereford steer called Roving Rambling. He showed it as a finished market animal. He has an associate degree in agriculture from the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture at Curtis.
By Beverly Merric, Custer County Chief, Spring 2003, Some Stories Change Your Life
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment