Category: Journal

This week, Naomi and I took a five day bus tour as a part of Beef SD, a program for young cattle producers to learn more about all segments of the cattle industry. Industry seems like a cold term, but the process of turning grass into the beef you might serve for supper tonight is such an amazing process, it takes an amazing amount of management and coordination to complete. This trip included visiting with world-renown livestock handling expert Temple Grandin, enjoying a meal at a white tablecloth restaurant, and tours of several large feedlots, a popular seedstock producer, and a beef packing plant. It is all too much to explain in just one post, so for today I'll just tell you about meeting Temple Grandin. Continue reading “Bus Tour part 1: Temple Grandin”

Saturday we freeze branded the heifer calves. These heifers are coming up on their first birthday, and have "made the team". They will be bred this summer to calve next spring as two-year-olds. We sold the bottom end (B and C squad, if you will) at the auction barn, some in February and some in early March.

So back to freeze branding. It is different than the traditional hot-iron branding. Rather than using a hot iron to create permanent identification, freeze branding uses extreme cold to alter the pigment of the hair. The process is more labor intensive than hot branding. Here's how it goes. Continue reading “Freeze branding”