I drove quite a few miles throughout our area this week—up to 150 miles. I see a lot of dry area that definitely needs a rain, with most all fields ready to plant wheat, but they are just waiting for moisture.
A few people have dusted in their wheat, waiting on that rain and hoping it doesn’t rain too hard to crust it over. A few, very few, places have wheat that is an inch tall, and they will need rain soon.
This past week most sales showed strength on long weaned yearlings off grass. Calves off the cow showed quite a bit cheaper, with some really fancy groups off the cow selling well. None of those calf prices are at the levels we were two or three months ago.
It’s that time of year when temperatures vary a lot, and it gets harder to keep them healthy. I tell myself I will not buy a calf off the cow this time of year, but when they get cheap enough it is hard to stick to those rules.
The grass is drying up quite a bit, with most cows and yearlings wanting to be fed. Cattle are smart enough to often know the rattle of the pickup that feeds them, and they can hear it from quite a ways. This is often a sign that they need a little more protein, unless it is like my boys’ calves at the house, and they simply want fed every time you come back to the house. They bawl like they are starving even if you have already fed them several times that day.
One man who starts a lot of small calves told me the health on his calves this year has been extremely good. He said he had a spray rig that held about 200 gallons of water, and he put a gallon of bleach in it, cleaning out tanks and spraying all the ground. I think I will try that. We had more trouble two months ago than I thought we should have.
The preacher said unless something changes on the inside, nothing changes on the outside. Pass that on to your friends and kids.
A young gal was helping her dad move some oilfield equipment. The Department of Transportation man stopped her. He walked all around the trailer as if he was trying to give her a ticket.
He walked back to the driver door and asked her, “What do you weigh?” She told him, “It is none of your business what I weigh.”
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the view of High Plains Journal. Jerry Nine, Woodward, Oklahoma, is a lifetime cattleman who grew up on his family’s ranch near Slapout, Oklahoma.
