We have a new toy.
One we’ve wanted for years and years.
One we dreamed about having probably about the time someone with smarts was actually developing the first real product!
They’ve finally become “affordable” and easy enough to work and install.
See, it’s calving season.
That means, rain, snow, shine, -40 or +40 degrees, 2pm or 2am, we’re checking our first calf heifers and helping them if need be.
I’ve written about it a zillion times… and nothing will ever replace actually walking through the cows, looking and watching… watching and looking at every rear end on every heifer.
But…
There’s one calving.
You’ve penned her.
She has a kink in her tail and a little bubble out her hiney.
It’s -30 and windy and 11:30 at night.
What do you do?
You tromp back home (or the guys ride their 4 wheelers which are too noisy and extra cold in my book).
You set an alarm for 30 minutes and warm up/read a book/watch tv/snooze until the blasted alarm goes off.
At which point you relayer your sweatshirt/Carhartt/coveralls/boots/hats/gloves designer combo and hike back over to the calving shed.
She has a kink in her tail and a little bigger bubble.
Oh, yay.
Tromp home.
Undress.
Set alarm.
Redress.
Hike back out noticing that the temperature has dropped another 4 degrees.
Fingers crossed as you flick on the light…
A kink and a tiny hoof.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Finally you arrive just 2 minutes too late and the calf has the sac over it’s nose and isn’t breathing. *&^%$#^&%!!
Been there.
Done that.
This, we hope, will help with all of those progress trips to the calving shed.
We now have a wireless Barn Cam.
We can see our pens from the living room of Daniel’s (my old) house.
Right now we have it trained on our midsized pen… though we’ll probably switch to the little pens once we really start calving.
The antenna sits next to the stove pipe… and seems to handle the 620′ distance just fine.
The camera is a typical security camera…
It’s color with lots of light… black and white in low light… and switches to infrared in no light.
Since we’ve seen this much works… we might be buying more cameras and the stuff to upload it to the internet.
That way, I can sit here 4 miles away, and see something going on and either make a phone call or go flying up the road! Or Victoria could watch from Kaycee. Or Brandon from Laramie.
I think that’s pretty stinking cool!
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February 22, 2010 Petite Partner
February 22, 2009 Bob
February 22, 2008 Runoff