Weaning Calves | Spraying Alfalfa | Easter Celebration

Okay six out of the eight of these are available to Pearson Farm Bro fans. So we sold two of these just to some neighbors and some people from church. The other six are like I said outside but it was kind of too windy. They're going to be available through a website called Farmer Grade. Another farmer we know who shares his life on YouTube. He sells pork through that and then he has some other beef farmers. So we're going to become one of his beef farmers. The steaks and hamburger will be available. We're pretty excited for that and we're excited for the butcher date in May. You guys can buy it though before the May date is here. It's on for pre-sale at farmergrade.com. There's different boxes. You can look at the inventory of what's in each box and choose what you think fits your meat needs for your family. There might be some pork product on there you could add there as well. Meet the Peterson family. Our dad, the three Peterson brothers, and our families farm together in central Kansas. Our family farm started in 1882 and has been raising cattle and crops ever since. Please subscribe to this channel and give us a like and a comment if you enjoy the video. So last video we showed moving this shed and I just wanted to show it all fastened down now. We had some of these stress casts laying around which are manufactured just here locally. You can buy like the extras from them. So that's what we use as the foundation. We didn't pour concrete and then over this past weekend it was supposed to get really windy. I got it bolted down. That's the status of the shed that we got set down and moved up here and it's nice to have another. This was the only building we had before at my house. Okay I'm running these steers through my uncle's chute that has a scale. This one weighs 1148. So instead of a tub he has a bucket. We got sun in the forecast. We got two open pens next to each other open for fence line weaning. I already got a bunch of ten calves off and then I got to separate three cows off and I'll have even more. Cows are sorted off. I sorted a couple that I knew I was going to cull. I'm not even going to preg to check them. I just knew that I was going to cull them. But then these ones are going back to the pen that they'll be fence line weaned and we'll preg check them in a few days or whatever. The majority of our fall calves today. They get to eat at the bunk today without their moms pushing them out of the way. Big piles at this place. Calves in from Missouri to ride. It's like 3 a.m. Got a load of heifers going to town today to be sold. This is down at mom and dad's house where we keep all the heifers and also the cows and calves are over here. So they're here too. Come on heifers! Shipping today. Come on get the last one. These are the ones Greg and I sorted up for grazing wheat that Greg and I did on feed number day. 40 new ones to add to the ones I got from Harrington this week. They came pretty early in the night. They came at 10 30 but I was already asleep. So last night it got down to like 13 or 14 degrees. So not exactly ideal for the wheat that's really been greening up and getting big. Especially this is like our earliest wheat. Part of the reason for split application of nitrogen I was kind of thinking it would help slow it down but most of our wheat is a lot smaller but even still with how warm it was and then how quickly it got cold I'm a little worried about it. The growing point is definitely above ground. So time will tell if we had enough insulation or enough ground heat to keep it from getting damaged all the way down to 13 or I was ready for a good wheat year. And I just put all that nitrogen on it. That's one of the hardest things around here is when you you push hard to get all the rest nitrogen and you pay all that money to put all the nitrogen out here thinking you're going to get a rain over the weekend and you don't get a rain and then the night last night got like five degrees colder than they originally had said a couple days ago. I don't know what the forecast was yesterday but it got all the way down to 13. I thought it was only supposed to get down to 18. So basically we got the opposite of what we hoped and thought but as far as to wait until after this weekend to put on the nitrogen that would have been kind of risky too because if it would have rained you know it would have been perfect timing and so it's just one of those things. Okay I fed these light cattle real good this morning. Some of these are the replacement heifers from the fall group plus a bunch of light calves that I thought didn't really need to go on silage yet they could just go eat some wheat and so we're putting these on a wheat. It's on the corner of the big pivot there. They have to make it around one corner where there's some wheat to the side and then they're going to go turn to the left around the pond. So that'll be their water source. I'm really hoping they just make an easy turn to the left. So Nathan parked the side kick to block him from going down that way. We got my pickup and the feed wagon and some weeds helping make a wall. So let's hope they just walk right on down along this pen and out to the left. They got the lagoon here and the pond over there. I'm just standing here making sure they don't come trying to blast through this hot wire. That's what cattle do. This is not their main forage resource but this is the pen that we have that we can keep them trapped and they'll go out on that wheat that's right there on the horizon. But I want to let them find the the barriers of all of this a couple acres before I let them open to the wheat. That way they can find the fence of one feel comfortable then find the fence of the other. Going around the pasture fence here. This is where we're going to put the spring pear so it needs to have best bits. I got Nathan. Nathan offered to help this year but really all that's happened is it's just been a nice windy office for him to answer phone calls talking about his planter his precious planter. But you know at least he's driving the sidekick along while I do all the work. Working some more cattle today. Some of these were ballers. Oh I'll have to run away. Some of these were ballers so we're giving them therapies. We haven't really been doing that much but. Come on hey hey hey. We we really try not to buy bulls and we tell I mean our order bar doesn't usually buy bulls but every now and then a few slip in but I'm hoping he got these for cheaper. This is my first spring burn down. Starting with the corn ground that will be planted here in two weeks to a month depending on weather and rain and this is one of the fields we had the forage blend on so there's some green radishes out there. There's a pretty good amount of cheat pin bid and luster just like that was in the wheat. So we're getting it cleaned up and then we're putting down some residual so that when we plant then this ground will hopefully hold clean until the corn has some height to it and then we'll put another residual to kind of layer them. So I've tried doing corn with just one herbicide pass before really doesn't hold around here and then I've also done and I did one field this year of fall I did I sprayed in the fall and then it stays clean and then you put your residual on once the corn's up and that that works pretty good if you don't have a lot of weed pressure. This year with this kind of the covers we didn't we didn't really have a window to do a fall application and so I'm going to do it this way with the with the two passes but pretty confident it'll work pretty good. The cheat is is really easy to kill but it takes a lot of moisture so you can't really leave it too long like I don't want the cheat to get big in the next two weeks and then if you don't get rain your corn might not even come up. So this is in the bottom where there's the most residue left over and we'll plant plant right into that. These the fields I'm starting on are pretty close to the feedlot so this will most likely be the corn we chop. This bottom we might pick because usually it it doesn't run out of water because it has a pond up there that so we'll see but should be a good corn field there's a dirty window. We're taking this group out. I think it's mostly steers but we're going to sort it heifers and steers. These cattle are about the same size as our fall calves. Okay we are done sorting. These are the heifers. These are the steers. Heifers are going back to the same pen they just came from pen 4b. Steers are going to be bumped up to pen 6. Hungry cows. Oh don't drop it! Don't drop it on the ground! It's a Saturday afternoon. We are rolling corn. We are working some calves. Okay so these cows have already had their calves. We set it up to where only the calves could run out onto my dad's yard so they have a nice clean space to run. Cows got to stay in this pen. There's a bunch of them now. A bunch of calves over here. This is the front half. Got some cows today that are going to be cold cows. Two of those are from the first group of cows I ever purchased in 2019. There is five good calves for me. I'm going to sell them for more than what I bought them for back there. In the last I think two years the calves have sold for more than what I bought the cows for so they've been a good investment. Defects now. They're 10 years old. One of them has lost a calf. Another one of them has got a limping leg. They're just kind of nearing the end of their productive cow life. I like the way cows load on a trailer. Hey! I've closed before. Like not at a zoo. There'll be some trophies before we get done today guys. You get to watch them here a hundred times. A dollar at a time. All right. Time to do some sorting. Okay. Those are the last five that didn't make the cut. We got two loads to haul in. Pretty good. Pretty good sized ones here. So it's kind of chilly when we started. It's a real nice sunny day now. Looked through pens nine and ten and took the top two loads off. Now we're putting them back in pen nine and ten. Doing a little windy day maintenance on the sprayer. These end nozzles they get... They're always the ones that get into something like a tree or the ground. I'm rewiring this. It was loose. I didn't want it to cause trouble when I really need it so... And then I'm hoping to get it greased. Okay. I found some more straw at the back of one of these fields. My dad missed a load. But I'm getting it now. Get this last bale on there. Two loads to haul into the sale today. And it's a farm. And it's a local farm show. So we always try to stop by there. Sometimes there's some some cool speakers to listen to and browsing around the equipment of course. My dad and I are gonna try to stagger. Like one of us is gonna... I'm gonna go in, haul the first load. Maybe buy some calves. My dad's gonna come get the semi. Leave a pickup for me. And he's gonna haul the second load. And then hopefully I'd have time to look at the farm show. And then we have to do chores. And then there's something else at 4 30 in the afternoon. Which is kind of right during chore time. But it's just gonna be a really packed day. But I'm... I've got the cattle fed. The ones that I fed very first. Which is the ones we're going to sell. They're just about getting cleaned up with their ration. So I'm gonna get ready to haul them in. Haul this first load in this morning. Okay. Out of that. Past this gate. It was too much for pin 10. So it'll actually be pin 10 and 4a. This pin's gonna sell too. And then we'll have 4a open. We'll get some new cattle this week. Okay. I got two in the jail. And I got eight up front. All right. They're about half an hour to the sale. They're loading up pretty good. There's about 23 on the top. Get these front ones moving in there. Hey! This is the... Hey! Smallest compartment besides the jail. So it only holds six. Hey! So I came back to get the checks. And it was just trucks. Trucks, trucks, trucks. I had a meeting at the banker. The banker had kind of like a market real estate meeting. And now there's just... I was glad we got loaded when we did. There's... We had to wait on two trucks before loading out. There's four in line plus the two loading out right now. I gotta get home. Hopefully I'm in time... Home in time to do my kid's bath. There's 80 out there from Salina. And 30 more coming from El Moreno later tonight. Okay. We sorted pin five this morning. Peppers and steers. Mostly steers. We decided to get the peppers off. And now we're putting pin three out into pin five. They're ready to start transitioning on to grower one. I'm gonna have to sit here patiently while we sort it up. Three... Three pins. Two of them are really small pins. I'm ready to feed. So the last day I worked it was like lower 60s. That was really nice. And I went to Iowa with Greg yesterday. And it was freezing cold up there. It was snowing. I mean it wasn't freezing cold but... It was cold for March. And cold for being 60 the day before. And I came home. It's like Iowa came with me. It's like 20... Well maybe 30. I think it's 30s. But it's kind of a wet day of cold. But there's some warm the rest of the other parts of the week. Anyways. That wind's whipping through me. I'm not wearing enough clothes. Okay. We tagged two more. Tag number 49. Number 32. Their moms are right on the other side of this fence like, what are you doing with my babies? We're not here, cavies. He's trying to squirm away. Now he's just... Yeah that one's a heifer. And the one up there is a bull. Okay I'm wanting to get a count on these ones. These are the later born ones. You can see the impact down the row of what's been fertilized on the left. And what's not been fertilized on the right. And we just put on some extra, extra go on this Triticale here. Get some more tonnage off of it. Whereas the job of this side, Triticale, is just kind of to pull nutrients out of the ground and work it, make it more readily available for the beans that will go in here. Okay so Nathan fixed something on my feed wagon again. I parked it in there right before lunch. And by the time I got back to it he, he'd already had the bearing off and the new... Well I think we use the same as the old chain, but put a new bearing on there on the chain together. So I won't have to worry about that. Wearing out on my feed wagon anymore. Thanks Nathan! I didn't show any of it, but I fenced a little bit of this wheat cover crop. I'm going to turn some light calves out on. Okay we sorted up a group of heifers. Dad and I. It's a windy day. Wind chill was the coldest we've had in over a month. The wind chill was 12 this morning. I believe we got 65. Dad might be counting one more time. Okay I'm ready to shut it down. It's a maintenance day for the payloader. I greased the loader. This got really dusty rolling corn yesterday. 40-50 did, so I blew it off. I'm going to help Nathan with one thing, moving his water trailer around the yard. He's going to help me with one thing, fencing. We thought we were done grazing, but now I'm deciding to fence some of that wheat out there. So I'm going to help him for a little bit. He's going to help me for a little bit. Have a good day. Not Harrington today. Got some nice calves in there. Not a full load by any means. Okay we got five left there. Six left in there. And we'll be done with these 50. So some of these calves from Harrington were kind of noisy last night, but they're nice looking cattle. Hey guys, if you were watching our vlog from a week or so ago, when we were top dressing the wheat up here for the second time and I was checking the alfalfa, I was talking about weevil. I'm out here checking this alfalfa again. It's definitely changed. So this is why you got to hop on it as soon as it starts warming up, because I can go fluff this around now. And there's all these little things crawling around and then there's two worms, three, four, five. I mean they're everywhere. They're everywhere. That day I was here, they were probably down in the ground because it had been cold. And then they come up and they will just be hammering this stuff. But you can almost already kind of see the white hue to it because they're eating so much. So I'm gonna come get this sprayed first thing because these things, they'll eat just around the clock and they'll just hammer an alfalfa field. It's not supposed to get below 40 tonight, so they will stay up and at them. When we haul hay in the winter, you can see it's greener where these tracks are. Driving on alfalfa will crush the eggs, break the eggs over the winter. The alfalfa will just look more whole leaves where the tracks are. And people have tried to roll whole fields. It's hard to get enough pressure because the land roller, you know, is made to just push rocks in the ground. But people have experimented with that. But an ongoing battle. And every year is a little different, but they're definitely bad here right now. So I know what I need to do. Well, yesterday was my one-year-old son's birthday. Today is his party. It's a Saturday, but we got some weevil to kill first. And tomorrow's Easter, so good job, Sprayer. The weevil are trying to eat all of our alfalfa. The wheat has kind of froze. It's kind of disheartening. But, you know, we went to the Good Friday service last night. They always perform the St. Matthew's Passion according or written by Bach. And so it's like an orchestra and a choir and my dad sings in it. Then they do another one on Sunday that Greg sings in that too. And I've sang it before. A whole bunch of us take our turns singing in it. But it was good. The Easter season is always a really fun time for us, both growing up and now. And, you know, no matter what's happening in farming, we know that our future is secure in Jesus. So it's a good reminder of that every year. And hopefully we live like that every day. So not that we don't get discouraged and a little down at times, but we try to remind ourselves of that. The bugs love the alfalfa. Hope it rains next week. That would help. I found a really cute one yesterday. Brighton, is this like your balance beam? And thanks for watching, everyone. Check out our music videos linked in the description. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat, and explore our website, www.petersonfarmbrothers.com. See you guys next time.