Weaning Calves

We started early moving the cows and calves from the trap - into the pens (those dot in the top picture are cow and calves)- it was early, the air was crisp and the wind was beginning to blow...
After we gathered them into the pens, Dale started sorting off the calves. I stayed out of the way and tied Dudley inside a pen that wasn't being used. Then, I was asked to help!! The task at hand was to put 10 calves in the alley from one pen and push them onto the scale. The trick was to make sure we had only ten in the alley to push onto the scale -that way the scale didn't have to be reconfigured each time. I'm kind of short so counting calves from the ground accurately isn't one of my greatest talents! As we were getting our 10 calves in the alley the gate operators were allowing more calves into the alley as Dale was sorting them. So we had to move quickly either pushing the correct number of calves from the pen or using the ones Dale was pushing into the alley or a combination of both. It was fun and fast though around cows you need to move quietly as not to get them excited. The wind blew all day and I actually had wind burn on my face. Once we had all the calves weaned they were shipped to another area to graze for 45 days. What a fun day!