Bald Eagles Are Trying To Kill Our Calves!

Good morning everybody. So things are picking up with calving. We're getting pretty busy. The cows, not much is going on with the cows. We probably have three or four cows that have calved so far but our heifers are coming along really well. We probably have had 20 or 25 of them calve already. So we'll go check them out later. I'm just finishing up feeding. So I've got a few questions on why we calve the time of year that we do. So it's February, we shoot, we calve February and March. We shoot for about a 60-day calving season. And the reason we calve in February and March is really because we want to get our cows bred again before we go back up to the Forest Service permits in the summer. So we turn our cows out on the permits around June 12th, mid-June. So our goal is to get our cows bred 82 days after they have calved. So if they calve in February and March, we have time, we have around 80, more than 82 days to get them re-bred before we turn them out onto the permits. The reason we want to get the majority of our cattle bred before they go up to the Forest Service permits is because those pastures are so big. Our bulls have a hard time, a hard time traveling those big areas, those big acreage pastures, finding the cows, breeding the cows when they're ready, catching them when they're ready. So that's why we calve when we do. We bring our bulls up to the hills anyway and so our bulls will still breed them up there. So why do you want a cow to get re-bred around 82 to 84 days after she's calved? It takes a good fertile cow about 45 to 60 days to start cycling again and just getting in her routine of things. And then you usually need another 20, 30 days to get that cow into a good body condition, in a good shape for re-breeding. So that's why we shoot for 82, around 85 days, whatever. They say between 80 and 90 days is a good goal. And we shoot for around 82, 84 days. I was just feeding the cows in the pasture and I saw these two bald eagles flying around and this lone cow standing over here. So I figured that's what was happening was these eagles were trying to get this calf or something. I've never seen the eagles trying to do that. I've seen coyotes and stuff but the calf is healthy. It's alive. The mom is staying in guard. I don't know what to do about these eagles. It's not like you definitely can't shoot them. That's illegal. But I guess we'll just keep an eye on them. There's two eagles flying around. We got the one on video. The other one's flying around overhead. You wouldn't be able to see him with the camera but I guess we'll have to keep an eye on this calf. Keep these eagles away from him. Kind of crazy. This area is the bald eagle's winter range. I talked to my dad about it. He said he's going to give the game warden a call. See what they can do. And the game warden said he didn't even really know what you could do because you know you can't shoot eagles. They're a pretty protected species. We don't want to shoot them. We're not going to shoot them. But you know we don't want them killing our calves either. So if we can figure out a way to keep them away from our animals, from our cattle. A safe way for them to stay away. That's probably what we'll figure out with the game warden. So he said he was going to do a little research on what could actually happen and get back to us. So the rest of the day we're probably just going to drive out there now and then. Check on the calf. Make sure the eagles aren't around. The thing is they know now there's going to be calves around all for the next couple of months. So they're not going anywhere. So we're going to have to figure out a situation or a solution to this situation. I don't know what it's going to look like but it'll be pretty interesting I'm sure. But we're not going to shoot them. So don't don't get worried about that. That's not going to happen at all. Well little buddy looks all right. I came back to check on the calf. It's been probably 45 minutes. Since I was out here last, calf looks good. Eagles aren't around. I'm going to drive around check all the calves that are out back here. Make sure they aren't bugging any of them and then we'll figure something out from there. So you guys were with us when we chased in all the heifers out of this front pasture. We chased them down into our calving lot and actually a couple days later we went through them all and sorted them and we turned out all the heifers that we thought weren't quite ready to calve or wouldn't be calving real soon. And then we kept the rest that we thought could could calve potentially any time or were further along than those other ones. We kept those closer ones in the feedlot. So we bring them in every night into the barns into some close pens. When we come check them they're just right there. And during the day we turn them out into the lot. Turn calves out into the pasture once they've been a couple days old. But now I'm just going to walk through them. We like to walk through them pretty often throughout the day just to make sure nothing's calving, nothing's having problems. And if they are we bring them into the barn. Either pull them or if they've already calved maybe make sure the calf has sucked. Some milk, got some colostrum that he's doing okay, that the mom's taking care of him. And then yeah just make sure everything's going good. So when I'm checking them, oh yeah we got some new sawdust too. And they're going to be bringing some more. We also set up our panels across there. We'll split it in two and we bring the cows in. But when I'm checking them I'm really just looking at the hind end. Make sure that there aren't any legs sticking out. You can't tell that there's been any, that this cow's trying to have a calf right now or that she's having any trouble. And if she is we just just kind of go from there. Hey little guys. First time being on a camera he's a little shy. And then once we get these calves pretty well paired up and they're taken to their mom good, the mom's taking them good, everything is all right. They've been a couple days old, a day or two old. We actually turn them back out into the pasture over here. And that's what those pairs are out there. They're just a couple older calves there that are doing good and the mom and calf kind of have a bond and are you know used to finding each other and everything. So cleaning poop? Yeah. Yeah. Did you have any in the morning? Yeah. None so far even. Yeah. There's one new one when I came in here. He was all right. There's what three or four since last night and this morning. Really? I think the snow might push him a little tomorrow. Yeah I bet you're right. We'll probably have a whole bunch tonight, tomorrow. Tonight and tomorrow's gonna be busy. Yeah. What do we have around 30 ish now? Probably at least. Probably. I'm gonna go check that one behind the house. Okay. Want some help cleaning? Yeah. Oh we're just about done. How are you? Did I show it up at the right time? Might need a two-person wheel battle push. Oh yeah it's a heavy. We've got to finish working on this light so we're gonna put this cow and calf in one of these pens back here. The middle one's nice. Since we run the heifers in these pens every night we got to be sure that we clean them every day. Just scoop up the poop and just keep them clean and good for the cows. This one must be pretty newborn too but he's getting some milk so we like to see that. Hey buddy getting a drink? And we got a couple nappers. Hey buddy. We got some afterbirth, nice placenta. We just had some lunch and over lunch there was a couple new calves born that the heifers had and then there's one that has some legs sticking out so we don't know how long she's actually been trying to have this calf so we're gonna get her in and just pull it just to play it safe. She'd probably have it naturally on her own no problem but we don't know exactly how long she's been at it. That bottle calf's gonna be as hoarse as I am. He doesn't think he's getting near enough to eat. Let's pull him up. Well we got the calf pulled. You guys will notice that we pulled a lot of our heifers calves. It's not that we have to. All of our heifers are artificially inseminated so when we AI them we choose semen from bulls with specific characteristics that we find are important. So one of those characteristics that we think is very important is calving these. So we look for a low birth weight on the bulls that we select semen for especially for our heifers. So these calves aren't very big they're probably 75 pounds which our heifers could easily have them on their own and most of them do but we do get a lot of our heifers in and just pull just pull the calf if we see that some legs are sticking out we usually just get that heifer in and pull it. It mostly just makes it easier for us so we don't have to try and keep track of you know this calf this cow's got legs out how long she's been going at it but so do these other two and three so which one do we need to get in and pull which ones have been going at it longer than others which you know so it's just easiest for us to get them in pull them move through the line put them in a pen quick get them paired up so that's why we pull a lot of our heifers calves. I know a lot of people don't. So now Jock and I are going to go up to a spot where we do some haying it's also some of our pasture that we keep our cows but we we store a lot of hay up there um we're gonna run up there now with the truck and semi or with the tractor and the semi and we've got some two probably last year's hay or the year before is hay I don't know how old it is exactly but it's some older hay um and we're gonna go there's only one load left we've been bringing it down now and then but that way since we have some nicer weather which is kind of abnormal we're gonna use that to our advantage go up get this load of old hay and we'll bring it to the feed lot I'll mix it in with new hay um for the calves so we can feed that but we're probably going to need all the feed we can get to get through this winter since we had such a dry summer and weren't able to produce as much hay as we we usually need but thankfully we do have a little bit of carryover from previous years um it's not the best quality but if we mix it in with the good hay we got from this last year we can we can make our hay go a lot further so we're gonna go get that now and then we'll come back and probably get the heifers in um and check them over again make sure nothing nothing's going on so here's our load of hay it isn't pretty isn't pretty at all but it's just what we got to do again it's probably at least two year old hay and we'll mix it in with the good stuff and we should be good got her all unloaded the one we pulled probably must have chased him in got into the house or something i'm sure we can look just make sure nothing's going on so we just got back from getting that hay and my parents must have chased the heifers in so this is where we keep them at night in these couple pens then if we got to mess with them they're really easy to take care of all right guys that's gonna be it for tonight my dad's gonna go out and check probably around 10 maybe around midnight i'll be going out at five and jock will be going at six yeah i just want to say thank you guys for watching the videos for liking and commenting you guys are super supportive um so yeah i really appreciate you guys and just thanks again for everything and i'll see you in the next video