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Hi Laura! I gave them a pep talk before they hit the runway. I guess it worked! JR had a great time at the Field Day. Maybe I can go next year and see you there. Thanks for your encouragement.

Justin, thanks for the encouragement and kind words. Hope you enjoyed the Field Day as much as JR did. Hope you look us up if you are ever in our area.

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching and letting us know you enjoyed it.

Thanks Laura! We all kind of enjoy tagging calves.

Thanks for your interest! We planted the Spring Cover All Mix from MBS Seed. Here is a link to the mix: mbsseed.com/product/cover-all-spring-cover-crop-mix-40-lb-bag/ We made a video of grazing it the 1st time here: ruclips.net/video/6N31eLkz1Nk/видео.html and the 2nd time (21 days later) here: ruclips.net/video/gu022NB0nl4/видео.html

Thank you for your kind words!

Steven, thank you very much!

Steven, thanks for watching! We appreciate your kind words.

Now you just gotta teach the dog to drive the truck and push the clicker

Thanks Laura! Hope all is well in your part of the country!

Hi Laura! Glad you enjoyed! We are working toward pulling it with the Suffolk Punch draft team. That's the idea we had when we got it. Will post a video when we can.

Clint, thank you. Glad you enjoyed!

John, we appreciate your support. Thanks a bunch!

The trap does help with the flies. At first glance, flies seem so simple, but there are lots of things that go into reducing your fly load. I think this is a great idea for a video. I'll try to put one together for you . . .

Hi Laura! It's been really hot here, so we gave the cattle access to both water and water that has an unrefined salt dissolved in it. It's kind of like when we are hot and need some extra electrolytes in our water. I think it helps the cattle in extreme heat and they seem to find it refreshing too. During August we had many days that the thermometer read 105 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and at night it didn't get below the high 80s. The bag in the water trough either had Redmond agricultural salt in it or an unrefined salt we get from a Kansas mine. It's the same salts we put out loose for the cattle year round. Thanks for asking and thanks for watching!

Sounds like a great idea! Would love to see a video of it if you care to share.

Joaquin, Thank you for watching and for your comment! You are correct that with the extreme heat we have been experiencing in mid- to late July and now in August that the cattle need shade. Unfortunately, it’s hard to show everything we do in a short video. The cattle have been rotating one to two times a day right now. In early July, when it was cooler than it is now, we prioritized grazing the pastures with the least amount of shade and the forage that would most heat stress (for example sorghum-sudan). Other camera shots would have shown you more shade in those pastures, but camera angles shooting into shade don’t always show well on screen. For the past 45 days, we have been able to keep the cattle rotating through pastures with adequate tree shade cover. As we continue to graze without rain, we will have to enter some of our irrigated pastures that don’t have natural shade. For those pastures, we have a mobile shade structure. That might be a good idea to show in future videos! Thanks again for your comment!

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement!

Oh, a time or two. Thanks for watching!

Thank you for your question. They are Allflex SenseHub Beef tags. www.allflex.global/na/product/sensehub-solution-for-beef-cows/

Bryan, Thanks for your suggestion! Hope your cattle are doing well. As we go into the fall and get our cover crops into the ground we will try to get you a video on planting. We are planning on trying something different this fall that a friend told us about. In the meantime, hopefully these two videos I have linked below will get you planning for next spring. Some questions were asked on the first video. Be sure to look at our responses in the comments below the video. ruclips.net/video/6N31eLkz1Nk/видео.html ruclips.net/video/gu022NB0nl4/видео.html

Thank you very much!

@@hoofhidellc7668 by the way, I'm the one you spoke to about my calves that were inseminated with semen from 6400...in particular the heifer that had joint ill.🙂

Laura, hope your little heifer is doing well and that your calves from 6400 turn out great! Keep in touch and email or text us pictures.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for watching! Glad you are enjoying!

Thank you for your question. We no-till drilled the seed into our improved coastal bermuda pasture. It is our first time having used this particular seed mix, but we do have several years worth of experience with sorghum sudan. This is what we did leading up to planting: Spring of 2023 there was a lot of rain consistently every week. The pastures looked lush, but were really "washy" -- our forage tests showed 80% water. The cattle simply could not eat enough forage to satisfy their nutritional needs and would lose weight on the pasture alone. So we used this opportunity to prepare the pasture. This particular pasture became the "bedroom" for the herd. We would have them graze the grass for a certain number of hours in the day and then they would return to this pasture and eat hay. The hay had fiber to counteract the "washy" grass. This resulted in a pasture grazed shorter than usual and with trampled hay litter. The first week of May we then no-tilled into this pasture using one bag (40 lbs) per acre at 1/2 inch depth. Hope this helps!

Hi! Thank you for your question. We did not add any amendments to the soil prior to planting the cover crop seed mix. We did however, use the cattle to help prepare the pasture for planting. Please see our response to SheepDogTX above on how/why the cattle grazed the pasture short prior to planting and trampled some hay as well. We followed the planting a few weeks later with composted, pelletized chicken litter from ViaTrac. This is also our first time using ViaTrac. The pasture next to this pasture did not have quite as good of a yield. Both fields had ViaTrac applied at the same time and there have been several heavy rains since it was applied. So far, we have identified three variables between fields. We are trying to use the soil samples to help us figure out what might or might not have made the differences in yield. The first difference was that the less productive field was planted a week or two later; the second was that the less productive pasture was not grazed as short prior to planting; and the third could be soil differences. I just came up with a fourth difference typing this: I suppose the fourth difference could be deer pressure. The more productive field is closer to where the sheep have been grazing and the livestock guardian dogs. We don't have the soil samples back yet so I can't tell you whether soil fertility differences made a difference. We took the forage sample to compare to the soil sample to see what the plants are able to utilize in the soils and to give us an idea of the nutritional value of the feed (since it is our first time growing this mix). We are a seed-stock operation and have different classes of cattle grazing throughout the ranch. For example, our bulls have different nutritional requirements than these bred cows with 5 month old calves on their sides. Hope this answered your question and helps you.

I saw your 2nd video. The pastures looked great. I was curious how the soil samples came back and how much of an impact it had (if any) on your less productive pasture. Also, are you pretty happy with the results you’ve gotten with ViaTrac? Thanks!

Sorry I didn't see your comment earlier. I was trying to use the soil samples to see if I could figure out the difference between where the cover crop grew really well and were it was not as robust. I didn't find a pattern yet. With regards to the ViaTrac composted, pelletized chicken litter, we don't use chicken litter often. I don't think we have used any in the past 10 years, but last year we decided to try ViaTrac because: 1) it is composted (chicken litter smell is reduced and I feel like the "bad" things in it are killed); 2) it is pelletized (we can spread it ourselves on our own time table). We didn't use it (or any other fertilizer product) on our cover cropped acres this year.

Thank you for your question. Unfortunately due to heavy rains, the horses couldn't enter the fields for this same event in 2023. But you can find the calendar of events on the Texas Draft Horse & Mule Association website here: www.tdhma.org/ Perhaps there is another one that would be of interest. Events tend to be in the spring and fall so the horses (and people!) don't get too hot in the summer.

Thank you. That is a great idea for a future video. This year, shortly after making this video, JR was injured and it was left to the kids and I to tag half the calves. We don't have the roping skills that JR does, so maybe our method would work for you. We tried to tag them right around 24 hours old or less (but not immediately because we don't want to interfere with cow/calf bonding). Essentially the calves born today would be tagged the next morning. The calves are easier to catch in that first 24 hours. We would look for a time of day when they tended to be lying down. Then, for the most part we could drive the gator up close to them and keep going as if nothing was happening, but our son would jump out of the back and quietly slip a rope around the calf's neck while the calf's attention was the gator that was still driving. Once the calf was on a "leash," we had control of it while the gator circled around and parked close to the calf. We would then lift the calf up on the scale. But we do have very gentle cattle that are used to us being in the pasture with them . . .

@@hoofhidellc7668 sounds like a good plan. Thank you!

Events are open to the public and lots of fun! You can find them listed here on the the Horse & Mule Association website on the calendar tab: www.tdhma.org/ Events tend to be in the spring and fall so there will probably be one that will work for you. Hope to see you there!

Thanks Jimmy! Calving season went great and we are gearing up for the next one. Love the calf scale and will be using it again this year.

Thanks. Hope you are doing well.

Thanks for watching Tom! Enjoyed visiting with you the other day.

Thanks Chris!