Nebraska Agriculture

#CalfWatch14

#CalfWatch14 is upon us and soon on many farms and ranches around the country new born calves will be running around with their cute little fuzzy faces and uncoordinated frolics. 

Don't you just want to tossel her curly fuzz on her head?

It would be totally fine by me if he licked my cheek right now.

 

Caution: This video is REAL LIFE on our farm shot last year during #CalfWatch13.

I have received several questions in the past year as to what is happening at about the 1:50 mark in the video. Like I mention in the footage, most times cows give birth all on their own but sometimes they need a little help, just as humans do. This particular cow had been trying to push out her calf on her own for awhile and if my dad had not stepped in to help her, the new little calf would have easily died. 

In the video you see a calf puller similar to this one.

 

Also an O.B. chain similar to this one.

My dad reaches inside the cow and wraps the chain around the bottom of the calf's legs then attaches the chain to the ratchet on the calf puller. My uncle then slowly begins to ratchet as my dad helps the calf slip out of the cow as she pushes.

Now, for the average viewer, this may seem cruel and unnatural.  But I can easily tell you the names of several grown men who watched their children being born that I guarantee probably thought "What The... is happening to my wife?" during the births.

Its all part of the natural cycle, birth is a intricate process that brings life to world and sometimes assistance is needed for the mothers. And in the case of cattle, a new born calf weighs around 80-100 lbs. Without the help of the above tools there is no way that my dad could have reached inside this cows uterus and pulled out a 90 lb calf on his own. I don't know if you have ever been an arm deep in a cows uterus, but its a bit slippery in there. So these tools are essential to helping during the birthing process for cattle. And that's all my dad is doing in the video, helping a mother give birth.

...that's what she said

So God Made a Farmer…the extended version!

It’s almost Super Bowl time and Ram Trucks has just released an extended version of the extremely popular "Farmer" commercial from last year. This extended version features an additional 40 seconds of Paul Harvey’s iconic speech from the 1978 Farmers of America Convention. 

This video will not disappoint! 

Now I may not be a "farmer" by career choice, but being raised by farmers and being involved in agriculture daily  sure makes me thank God that he made farmers.
   

And on the 8th day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker”. 

So God made a farmer.

God said I need somebody to get up before dawn and milk cows and work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.

So, God made a farmer.

I need somebody with strong arms. Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry and have to wait for lunch until his wife is done feeding and visiting with the ladies and telling them to be sure to come back real soon…and mean it.

So, God made a farmer.

God said “I need somebody that can shape an ax handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And…who, at planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon. Then, pain’n from “tractor back”, put in another seventy two hours.

So, God made a farmer!

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop on mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place.

So, God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees, heave bails and yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink combed pullets…and who will stop his mower for an hour to mend the broken leg of a meadow lark.

So, God made a farmer.

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight…and not cut corners. Somebody to seed and weed, feed and breed…and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody to replenish the self feeder and then finish a hard days work with a five mile drive to church. Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who’d laugh and then sigh…and then respond with smiling eyes, when his son (or daughter) says he wants to spend his life “doing what dad does”.

So, God made a farmer! (and his wife)