After last week’s move of the cows to the Slope Pasture, the next day was to gather the heifers and pregnancy test them with a blood draw. I arrived late,thinking I was going to stack hay for the trailer to haul it out of the field. It looked like they were short handed, so I stayed to help them instead.
It was HOT.
We kept up the banter and teasing, just to help keep Quinlan and Lorelei going. They were still tired from the ride the day before. We’d give them a break, and, at the same time, Brandon, by letting them learn how to draw blood.
Quinlan’s done this before… and got some good practice in. Lorelei only did a couple, she doesn’t quite have the strength to lift the tail on her own. And I missed taking her photo.
Megan can hit that vein under their tail with great regularity.
Me? I’m a paperwork/push them up the alley kinda girl. Definitely not a photo worthy job.
After slogging through the heat, 217 heifers were tested, and we broke for lunch at 2:30. Daniel and Jaxon showed up to feed them, which was great, because we were cooked. Daniel also found the three missing ones hiding in the pasture, so, overall, job well done. Heat? Cooked? Well done? Is there a theme here?
(We will mail these blood samples to a lab and they’ll let us know which ones are pregnant.)
Find me here!
A hot, important job well over. Nobody who knows says ranching is easy.