Good morning! We work cattle a couple times a year and I thought I would hop on here and provide in greater detail the how and why! We bring the cows in around October 31st to wean the calves and to conduct pregnancy checks. The vet will estimate the due date for us, helping us to be more aware of who is expected to calve when. During this time we wean the calves from their moms. We provide the calves with creep feed during the last few months they are with their moms, this makes the weaning transition a little easier.
We bring the cows back in during the winter months- just a few weeks before they begin to calves. This is when we give the cows a preventative scour shot. The shot increases the calf's immunity to scours. Scours is a form of diarrhea and can be life threatening if not treated.
We bring the cows in one more time during the month of June to give them a preventative pink-eye shot. This is also when we provide the cows with a mange and lice pour-on (similar to flea/tick treatments for our pets). Read an old post to learn more about pink-eye in cattle. https://pickingwildflowers.org/2017/08/28/cattle-get-pinkeye-too/.
Here is a picture of Megan applying fly spray! The fly spray is used in the same way as bug spray. Just like people, we want our cows to be comfortable and bug-bites can be annoying!
There are also individual circumstances that brings a cow in to be worked- injury, calving situation, nursing challenges, etc. but we do our best to take as many preventative measures as we can!
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