Today was harvest day - I loaded most of my steers in the rain this morning and took them to several processors. These came off grazing corn and not counting the heifers, the average steer weight was about 1020 lb. Better than last year but I want to get the average up higher.

It is a good feeling to get them on their way.

The corn grazing worked very well except I think I ran out of prime corn about 2 weeks earlier than expected. I did not anticipate how their corn consumption would escalate as the weather changed and they got bigger.  I had hay out and the percent corn in the cow pies kept going down.

Nothing quite like trying to weigh and load them by myself in the rain! I was very thankful for my handling facility and loading ramp.  Backed the trailer up to it last night so they didn't get spooked this morning. They came into the corral for a treat and went on the trailer amazingly well.

Now to put the cows on the stalks for a few days if it dries out a bit but not much left.

Coming back from the last processor I heard an interesting farm report on the radio. It said that after calving and with cows on 6" and under grass most folks think they need to supplement with grain.

This university expert said that was exactly the opposite of what cattlemen should be doing right now.  He said the under 6" first grass may not look like much but it is around 22% protein and has lots of energy. He said what they need is fiber and roughage.  Maybe the remaining corn stalks in the grazed strips will provide some "roughage" in addition to the hay that's still out.

Now to focus on the new calf crop. Grass is just not growing here even though we are very wet. Just been too cold.  Weather report has lows in the 30's through next week or more.

Jim at Dawn