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Q&A Part 2 Slipped Calves, Replacement Heifers & “Is This Even a Hobby?” · Ranch Wives Unsupervised

• Episode 16: I would consider this a hobby. Does this count as a hobby? This counts as a hobby. Okay, this is Ranch Wives is a hobby. Ranch wives is a hobby. Because we're not we're not making money. This is a hobby. We're just here to socialize. Yeah. Does that count? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say So we're gonna do a little QA. Part two. Part two. I think it's been four weeks since our last QA, so we're gonna do another one. Cause we had a lot of questions in that one and then Yeah, we couldn't fit all of them into one. So we're like, let's do another one. Yeah. So one question we have was, what is it what's the term mean? Like slipping a calf and like cleaning out yeah, okay. So slipped a calf essentially means she miscarried and or aborted due to some reason. Like her her she couldn't keep the calf, the calf wasn't formed correctly. We had one slip because she got hit. Like into a feeder. wow. Mm-hmm. So if they get hit hard enough that could cause them. Or stress. Stress, yeah. Like if you move you don't want to move your cows right before calving because typically you might slip one or Yeah. Yeah. So pretty much. And then cleaning out is if that once they have calved, whether it's they've slipped their calve or not, they've actually calved, they have to clean out their placenta and everything else. And sometimes that doesn't a cow doesn't clean out properly. Like we had one one twenty five who slipped hers and then she did not clean out, so we had to treat her. Yeah. Because she was infected. Yeah, 'cause they go septic. Yeah. And so it was like rotting essentially in the inside of her. Yeah. This is pretty stanky. Yeah. Not ideal. No. Do you have any other The next question would be, how do you feed in winter? Feed in water in winter. how we feed in water. I think this might be different for all of us. Or similar. I don't know. We do hay. We're trying corn this year. Right. And our cows look snow. Right. Do your heifers look snow? Like your first time cavers look snow? We haven't kept heifers for a couple of years. But no. the couple times we did we just wintered them at his dad's place. Okay. to drink. Or to have the water bowl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's pretty similar to us. Some winters we try and have a water system. Some winters that freezes and then we're like, okay, you're lick you're licking snow now. But our calves or heifers, like they so that would be like your calves in you calvin May. And then that winter those When you wean. When you wean, they're technically heifers at that point. Well no. Yearlings. They're yearlings. Yeah. Well, no, they're Well, they'd still be calves. They're still calves. They're just still your calves. Yeah. But so our calves and then our heifers. So your So your heifer, when we're talking about it's called a first time calver. Yeah. Is another way of wording a heifer. Yes. For anybody who doesn't. That's your first time calver. So you're generally after she calves, then she's a cow. Yeah. So they generally need a little more TLC. Yes. So for us. It's like a teen mom. Yeah, you keep them on you want them watered. And you generally have them on the back. Feed. Yes. In it we do anyway. So like we we wean in November, generally, depending on how much snow there is. Yeah. Because how we wean is dependent on how much snow because our cows only lick snow. So they have to go out. So they have to go out. Yeah. They have to have enough snow to lick. We do have a water system for the first little bit on the hill, but it doesn't That dugout isn't long enough or big enough to last two hundred head all winter. Yeah. Plus it freezes. Yeah. All the time. So our calves are always on water. Water. Yeah, us too. And then our calves go to snow and we feed hay. We don't do corn. But we also don't bale feed. We What do you call it? Fe we put them in our bales go in feeders. So we like in the fall we'll haul all of our all of our feed to a stackyard according to where we're gonna feed the cows. Mm-hmm. Haul it in and then when they're moved into that field we haul it back out every other day. Every other day or every third day, depending. Yeah. On the weather. Okay, and you put it in a bale feeder, you don't roll it out. We don't roll it out. Okay, we roll ours out. we don't roll it out, but we bale graze. We bale graze when they're calving. okay. We bale graze. But in the wintertime we roll it out. 'Cause what we do is we do corn. Yeah. And so what we'll do is Jorm will put them in a new section of corn and then when that's like getting low so like a day or two afterwards, then he'll roll out like two or four bales. I see. For to last them 'cause then they're still eating the corn, but there's not enough corn to like last to last them too long. So then they'll supplement with hay. Yeah, supplement with hay. And then so The corn is essentially grazing because it sticks out far enough from the snow. Yeah. So yeah, we want to try that. Yeah. And then do you guys do any grain with yours? No. We don't either. Sometimes yeah. Okay. It depends but you grain farm. So we grain farm, yeah. So it makes sense. My brother in law rolled the grain truck this last year. And so we had a lot of grain hit the ground. That couldn't go. That couldn't we couldn't sell that. So then we've been feeding a lot of grain this winter. Right, because you have it, you might as well utilize. Yeah. Or if the grain spoils, like if it's in a grain bag and then, you know, wildlife rips it open, then it gets kind of moldy or gross in one spot, then we'll just take that area of the grain bag and then feed it to the cows. Do you keep replacement heifers and how do you determine what to keep? Yeah. So you said earlier that you haven't been. We haven't been. Because you don't because you haven't had heifers or we last year we had all steers. So we were going to keep and we had all steers. That's crazy. yeah, that's crazy. There wasn't heifers. There wasn't any no heifers. There was nothing to keep. Yeah. The options were gone. Limited. Yeah. we're hoping to keep some this year, but we only keep the best. So describe her. Describe your determin. The best. The criteria. when they that's when we pick. when we go to sell, we'll pick out the ones that are like look good. Like have grown well, that look nice. And then you kinda do you look at like the cow number and be like, yeah, like this is a good cow or You don't care about that, just looks. Our cow herd is really good. So I don't feel like we have a cow in the herd where we're like we don't want to keep a heifer out of you. Mm-hmm. Right. We all we have a really good cow herd. Yeah. So I have And so keep what What do you describe as good though? Because I don't know if the listeners would know like it depends. This depends on your criteria as well. I think this might change ranch to ranch. Yeah, I think it does. Yeah, it does. So what's your version good? The build is built. Like if they're built to berth a calf. Yeah. Yeah. If the bag looks good. Yeah. If they're they don't have to be big. Some of our best cows are pretty small and they'll raise a calf that is is the same size as them come fall. Mm-hmm. but yeah. I don't know. David normally picks. Yeah. How do you guys or what do you guys do you guys keep? Yeah, we keep most, actually. Okay. And then Jorm Does the same thing, like looks at the bill. Like if there are some that are like really ratty or like really like gnarly, yeah. Then he's like, Okay, yeah, no, we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll also look at how much feed this goes into it big, like how many bales we got this year, how much grain we have to feed, how much corn we have, as to how many we can keep. Yeah. Because you can't keep all of them every single year because you don't have enough feed that year. Okay, so we're a little bit different. We are coming from a herd who's got somewhat like we've had some bad bags, but we also have bad feet. We had a bull come in with like really bad feet. Yeah. so we're more picky and we tag off the hop. So like we'll look at their mums if their mums are pretty old and still have a good bag. Yeah. We'll tag. We'd look for good bag, good feet, good build. Right. Right, because you're trying to improve genetic genetics and you're heard. Yeah. So like for example, last year we only had twenty-six replacements. Or like sorry, not last year. This year the ones that just cabbed were animals. And there was only twenty-six of them that that we kept. Right. So we'll take anything that we want to keep with an orange tag, we'll keep them until they're yearlings. Or no, that's like sometimes if there's a calf in there that's like super hot right off the bat, a heifer that's really hot, we'll just she's gone. Yeah. Like if they're any s sign of being crazy, yeah. They're gone. Or if they're ratty. But even some of the radtier ones we'll let grow out to yearlings. And they some some do good. Mm-hmm. Some turn around and do really good. Yeah. And then others don't. So then they get we kind of do like two selections. Right. So at calves we pretty much keep everything unless they're wild. Yeah. Then as yearlings we'll go back through, we try to keep what we can. Yeah. Especially 'cause we're like trying to build our numbers up. Yeah. And if they're crazy or ratty, then we'll sell. Yeah. And that's the thing too is some years you are like I feel like it's off and on. Some years you're trying to build and some years you're like, okay, like You're just trying to maintain. Yeah. Yeah, like for us, like that year, the year that we kept the twenty-six, two years ago, I guess, this would have been calves. We were we sold as many call cows, essentially I think other than like five. Yeah. We were essentially breaking even. Yes. And that's the thing. It all depends how many calls you have, how many opens you have that year too. Yeah. Because you don't know what's gonna come and what's gonna come. But then this year coming up, like the so last year's calves, we like 45. okay, yeah. Because a lot of our good calves finally threw us a heifer. Or like you know what I Or getting we're also getting better genetics. Yeah. Slowly but surely. So then you're like, okay, we can keep a little more because now we have more good feet and more good legs. Plus, but it also depends on your feed. yeah. If you don't have the feed, you're not gonna can't keep them. Yeah. Right. Or we've had a couple years of no like nobody's been getting hay the last couple years because it's been drought years. Yes. And so a lot of people have been selling. Yeah. So for us though, we did sometimes I think it was two years ago. We chose to keep like all of our replacements and sell a little heavier on calls. Because your replacements, even though it takes you two years to raise them up for a calf, like to have a calf. Yeah. they're still cheaper to feed than that old call cow. So there is a it depends. It definitely depends. Yeah. But you can increase numbers with the same amount of feed doing it that way as well. Like it yeah it kind of depends what you have for feed. Yeah. But we were pretty picky. But then this year we only have I think we'll be lucky to get twenty seven. Okay. There's two out there that are still really good cows that haven't cowed. Hopefully they give us a heifer, but we'll see. Yeah. Because so many of our good cows throw throws steers. Yeah. Yeah. And then this year because the app updated that I was like telling you guys about that we use the rancher app, you can actually tell what cow has given you what sex. So This cow called Honey, which is like the girl's favorite. She's we love her. A15, great cow. Has never given us a heifer except for the very first year she kept. Really? So she's like, she's an A animal, which is the equivalent to like. That's like pretty old. No, but it's not because we we missed our A, B, and C. A, B, C, D are not the equivalent. So we're on, what are we on right now? P N It's P this year. I know. But I'm trying to alphabet backwards. When did you start? What year? Twenty nineteen. Anyways, whatever year that is, it's not an actually an A, whatever. I think it's like a G or a K. okay. Like a G or an F? Yeah, G or an F. Maybe an F. Anyways, whatever it is. That so but she we don't keep out of first time heifers normally. But this year we did because a lot of our first time heifers were out of like old proven cows that we really liked. Mm-hmm. And so we kept their heifers, but we normally don't. So we'll see how that works out. Yeah. Do you guys keep out of first time cowers? If they have a heifer, do you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah? yeah. You don't? We didn't used to, but it's also because th that was a it was a smaller bowl that we had in there. We had like a long horn. bull cross in there for a few like prior when we first started. So we never did. But this year we could last two years, I think we three years we could. Huh. Yeah we do. Yeah. So anyways, but that that pasture tour that I was at, he doesn't keep anything unless it's five years old or older. Like out of a mom that's been proven. What? But he doesn't pull anything. And it's very again, very differently pull. I know, but it's just interesting when you're when you're calming out eight hundred head. Yeah, that's true. You don't have time to be danking around with crazy bad bags or otherwise. Yeah. So anyways, it was just interesting to hear different dynamics. Five years. But it's interesting too because we had was a bee animal again. I know Actual letter that is, whatever it is. B13, she looks so good until she turned four and her bag kinda like Yeah, that is true actually. Sometimes they're like good, good, good, good, good, and then bag like goes tanks. We also have like some young animals that we replacements and first time cavers, just awful bags. Like what they their mums look good, quote unquote. Yeah. Anyways, that's that's a story on replacement heavers. Yeah. I think the last question is yeah. What are our hobbies? For hobbies. Do we have hobbies? Off farm hobbies. Off farm hobbies. Okay. I don't Well Lacey kind of went into it a little bit in a previous episode. You guys like to hike Whitewater kayaking. Whitewater kayak. See, how do you get into whitewater kayaking? I d I do have to ask that. Because that's like a pretty ex It's extreme. I would call it extreme sports. Yeah, like that that could get pretty gnarly. he found a kayaking group. So he's like been a kayaker. No. He wanted to get into kayak. okay, okay. So he found a group on Facebook. And there's a group on Facebook for everything. Yeah. Yeah. If you can't He found one in Fort St. John and joined and then we did some pool sessions because you have to learn the basics in You can bring your kayak to the pool? Yes. Like in the w so you're in the waves? No. So In the cold pool? Yeah, in the lap pool. How old are we? Five? The cold pool and the wave pool. Is that what they call it? It's called the lab pool. The lab pool. I I think it is called the Wave pool though, isn't it? I don't know what it's called. The leisure pool. The leisure pool. Yeah, it's lap and leisure. Yeah, anyways, anyways. Back to the story. Sorry. The c the lap pool. The lap pool. The the cold one. Because you gotta learn like it's a whitewater kayak you have to learn to roll. Right. You have to learn to like be upside down when you're in the water. Yeah, if your kayak flips upside down, you gotta roll back up. you're you're like in there. Yeah, 'cause you got a skirt. Like you're stuck. Water can't get into your kayak. A skirt. Yeah. So it's like around your waist. then it goes around the top edge. okay. I saw that. Yeah, it goes around the top edge of your kayak so that water can't go in. So David just like joined this and people do this like every week. You guys meet up every week? No, we whenever they host. Once a month kind of thing? In in wintertime for pool sessions, it's once a month. Okay. okay. And then when the rivers are running, then whenever somebody's whenever somebody's going. Yeah. So K do you have to do X amount of pool sessions to then get into the river. Technically no. So if you're going to a kayaking function, you have to like have a little bit of experience. Yeah. If you're going on an I think it's called like an outdoor adventure experience. You do not. You're telling me some people be jumping in a in a white water kay and they've never there are people actually I can't I just had this discussion with somebody and they were taking Canadian tire kayaks with a garbage bag in white water. Like they are stupid. Yeah, that's that sounds like a death sentence. Yeah, then they're like, the river's not that great to run. It's a little scary. No duh. I'd be a little scared too if was in a trash bag. Ay yay. With all the proper equipment, you have to have a helmet because if you roll, you can't. And you hit a rock. You can mean choke. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, you guys are nuts for And life jackets, because with currents and stuff, you don't know. You swimming doesn't matter. Yeah. Like it. You can swim as hard as you want and you are not getting out. Or you get tow. Or you get in a hole, like you're not getting out. Yeah. And life jackets are easy to are they easy to spot in whitewater? Does it even matter? No. How do you find somebody? So okay, well yeah, what's the protocol? Somebody goes. Cause you sent us a text on your anniversary trip that somebody done gone over the waterfall and didn't come back up. Probably came back. Yeah. They did come back. They did. They did. It took a while. Yeah, there was an instance. It was a hot minute. Like it wasn't good. So what yeah. What happened? Well, he went or what do you do, I guess, is the what's the protocol? You give a certain amount of time, which everyone is a little bit different, and then somebody will tie on a rope and jump in and there'll be people at the top to pull them out. Right. Okay. So then you jump in, the guy can drag them out and then you So who decides the time? The person jumping or the the person that generally the person who has the most experience. there's generally somebody that yeah. Yeah, you probably feel it out, right? It's not like you're counting. No, but there's generally one person or a couple people that have are more experienced. Yeah. And they call the shots. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Okay. okay, so what else do you guys do? Like we do a lot of hiking as well. Okay. And then like wintertime we snowboard. You guys like crazy. Idea of snowboarding. Keith is very good at snowboarding. I try. Tragically bad. I did pretty good this year. Like I actually got down the hill. Yeah. But I think it was like the first or second year we were married. A girlfriend of mine invited us to like PK to cause her parents like have a cabin out there and all that. Yeah. I was like, you guys can go down the hill without me. Like I I'm okay to just eat it on this hill. That's I'm so bad. But I love it. I think it's fun. This year was funner because I could actually I find it fun now 'cause my kids are old enough to like Yeah, you're not just like holding them the whole time. Yeah, they're not on the leash and I don't leash them anyways. No. David does. Yeah, that's fair. But yeah. Huh. Hmm. Anything else that you Okay, so they're not really like off farm though, technically. Like I just started bees. That's a new hobby. That's a good hobby. I have a Melk Cow, but she's on farm. Mm-hmm. But do you read? I do I do read. I do like to read. I would call that off farm. Okay, that's off farm. Yeah. So I read I don't read as often as I would like to, but I like to sit down and read a good book. What else? I don't know. Yeah. That's kind of all I got. No, nothing to I wanna learn how to sew. I think I said this in the other episode. Yes. That is a hobby that I have a desire to start. Yeah. And learn how to do potter. Our sew. Yeah, lazy sew. We're just gonna start a sewing club. I also do pottery. I think it's a Yeah, you do pottery and sewing. Yeah. You're crafty. yeah. You are so crafty. Like very okay. When you do Sunday school crafts, I'm like, I want to be in your Sunday school class. Like I'm so jealous. I don't have that in my brain to just like come up with something cool and like We have that one friend in our small group and she is the crafty Yes. Like mom. She does it. yeah. That's her thing. Great. For all the kids. She just organize So good at that. Yeah. Not me. Artsy. No. I would consider this a hobby. Does this count as a hobby? This counts as a hobby. Okay, this is Ranch Wives is a hobby. Ranch wives is a hobby. Because we're not we're not making money. This is a hobby. We're just here to socialize. Yeah. Does that count? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say yeah. I would say I'm Here's the thing. I'm very artsy as in like I did dance, musical theaters, singing. I'm not like a sit down and draw, paint, craft person. I think you can be artistic in a lot of different ways. Yes. And it comes out in different ways. Yeah. Just because you can't draw or do something, like I think you can still be very artsy. Yeah. I like it. That's encouraging. Yeah. I I prefer like sporty things. Yeah. Like if we didn't live so far out of town, I'd probably join like Squash. Would you do squash? Okay, my husband took me Okay, this is hilarious. Keith took me to squash at on one of our anniversaries. Yeah. Last year. He kicked my butt. First off, we're two, we're so competitive, both of us. Like neither of us like to lose. I couldn't I love playing squash. I was sweating and he was just like. All over the map. He's so squashed. Keith is very sporty. I think it's squashed. It it's a blue ball. You have a racket and you hit it against a wall. And you have like certain places where you can let it bounce or hit it or interesting. Yeah. Okay. Let it bounce back. I don't know. It's a lot of fun. Absolute sweaty workout though. I'm like, this is a wild anniversary thing, but it was a lot of fun. Yeah. That's what we do. And we like to like bike or things like that. Like Yeah. yeah. But yeah, if we if there Motney just redid their baseball fields. I just noticed that. I want to do like it would be so fun to get like a little baseball league out here. I would play it, I think. Like software. You guys don't have a league? No. Cecilic Lake has a league. Yeah, I think that would be fun. Cecil Lake's league. Yeah, you can so far. But it would be fun. They just did their ball tournament last weekend. It's always young. Yeah, we always have a ball tournament and stuff. I'm not sporty at all. No, me either. I'm not I can dance my butt off. But I will not w h hike, walk I like to hike. I always blame my asthma. I'm like, sorry, I can't hike. I've got asthma. But you can get it. I would like to clarify. There's people that hike, and then there's people that hike. yeah. Yes. We are the second. No, no. you hike. We hike. Yeah, okay. Like there's no trail. You're rock climbing there's like your one over Deadfall and through bush and like no. Down a cliff. No, no. I don't like that. Turns like I'm out. I'm done. I like Joram and I will play badminton in the summer, actually. We like to play badminton. Badminton's fun. We love it. We got a little cheap net and we'll just back and forth. Did you have you ever played pickleball? No. Kate, Keith and I I don't know. We we went down to Arizona to visit my grandparents. And we met up with a family friend down there. And she taught us how to play pickleball. fun. So again, he's super competitive. So much. I think Frisbee Golf would be fun. we did that too on that same anniversary trip that he took me to do squash? Yeah. Frisbee golf. Frisbee golf is fine. Fezgolf is fun. That's fine. The only thing I have ever played is mini golf. That's funny. Thanks to my sister and brother in law. And we took the kids. That's fun. I did it once and now I watch. You're like, that's great. I'm done. That was fine. I'm done. That's fine. I cannot does not go where it's supposed to. That's not for everybody. And I like okay, the other hobby I would say that I don't know if it counts, I like to bake. Mm. I d like to bake. But I stress bake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long time I bake something. But I'm like, my kitchen is clean and I'll bake. I do like that too. A fresh kitchen and then you bake in it. So satisfying. Bless you. Both of us today. Woof. I'm next. Yeah, you're next. I think I guess my other hobbies, I like to sing, I like to dance, I like to You are very gifted in like that side of musical theater. Like but those that side of the arts, you're very whoop very gifted in the Yeah. My whole family can sing. My mom's dream was to put us all in like a little family band kind of thing. That's like my in law my my mother in law, her family, they all sung in like a little I love that choir and like when we go to Christmas there they would sing. They would all sing together and it was like I thought that was the most fascinating thing. Storm's family they all sing together. They're not good at it, but they do it. They do it. They are their hearts are in it. Like we'll do hymns. And it's very sweet. It is so sweet. Like at Christmas? At Christmas. Emphasize on make a joyful noise to the Lord, not Yes. Everybody be on key. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thompsons do the same. Hey, that's a good joint. That's a good heart. That's a healthy heart. Yeah, it's a It's very sweet. And I would say in the wintertime I like to I have my Nintendo Switch. And I like to play Animal Crossing or like some Mario games. Like Mario Kart. my gosh, I love Mario Kart. I don't think I've ever done this. And I'll have you over and we can Yeah we can do we should do a girls night of a little game night. That would be fun. do you know what we should do? I'll get another remote. This is just live, but like we should have everybody out and do like a boards game night. Do you do either of your No? You hate boards games too? Board games too? I love board games. Me too. David is like in the he's a very intense board gamer though. It depends on what kind of board game. Tell me. But I don't love them. And then You just haven't found the right one. No, no. No, she's like, I'm not convinced on that either. My mothers like to cheat. So much worse. I love And so like I was just annoyed all the time. I just wanted to play. But then I'd get like worked up when his family did because I was like if they're winning, I like, You're obviously cheating because that's the way my family won. And so then Mm. So not for you? No. Okay, that's all right. We try. I card games. My brother in laws like me better when I sit out. It's for the best. It's for the best. Yeah. We all love each other a bit better when Lacey sets out. Yes. Yes. Keith doesn't like he'll play, but they're not really his favorite. I love card games. Love card games. And board games. But I love cards. David does not like card games. Really? No. He likes a good board game with strategy and No. So like what? That's the opposite of what I like. I like no strategy board games. Like risk. Yeah. I mean I do love a good risk game every once in while. Like once every three years I can do a risk game. And then I'm like, okay, I'm good for now. I'm good, I'm good. Like Settlers of Catan. My dad has every single one of Settlers of Catan. OC David doesn't like that one. But my son is obsessed with board games as well. So my brother-in-law does like games night every Wednesday. And he is very excited that he is old enough. Yeah, he's qualified. He is qualified, yes. He looks forward to this every week. That's I love that. And then he then you have a girlfriend. He beat Ty in Risk at Christmas. Oof. Okay. When I was like when I was a very similar age, I beat my dad at risk. And I was also like, you guys, I'm the no big deal, but I just beat Dad at Risk. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. I love that. Thanks for hanging out with us today on Ranch Wives Unsupervised. If you've enjoyed the chaos, hit that like button, drop a comment with your own ranch story, and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. And follow us on social media at RanchWives Unsupervised for more unfiltered fun between episodes. We'll catch you next time. Stay unsupervised, ladies.