“Well she might not be very big on cow and she is sure huge on momma!”

Ellen and I were at the cattle auction in the early spring a few years ago.  This was BR (Before Retirement)  We were looking of pairs, or cows with their calves to buy.  My reasoning for doing so is flawed economically I know that.  The key for any successful business or farming or ranching operation is you must take in a great deal more than you spend.  That is just good business, farm and ranch 101.  Just the same as any household budget, you have to make more than you spend.  Sort of Dave Ramsey FPU in a nutshell.

Though my reasoning is flawed I do this for a couple reasons.  Keeping back replacement heifers lessons your income when the feeder cattle go to market.  The good side of that is it also lessons your tax liability.  But it also really lessons productivity in your heard.  In that a heifer has to be raised up old enough to breed.  Then she has to go through her gestation period.  Then she has to calve and raise that calf up old enough to wean and sell.  Therein lays reason number two.  First calf heifers some times just have a heck of a time calving.  Your chance of loss of calves in calving first calf heifers is also greater for both heifer and the calf.  Then you even have the one that as in humans after they calve really have no interest in their off spring.  Yes even in the animal world after all the misery of carrying and panting and blowing and straining and pushing.  The confused proud young mother says to heck with this I am leaving this on a park bench, the orphanage door step or the folks door step and disappears in to the night.  Well heifers really don’t have that option.  Rather on occasion they choose to tap dance all over their calf, kick it and refuse to let it suck    So you have to sort of mother them up for a day or two and  after awhile they will bond 99 times out of a hundred.

So in order to be the least amount of pain in the derrière of the people that lease my property and watch over my cattle I usually go the easy route and just buy cows and calves and take the hit in the checkbook.  Not a good business practice but…. I really do not want to impose more than I already do. 

   

So with that long explanation Ellen and I find ourselves at the sale yard or cattle auction every year in the spring looking to replace the cows that we sold last fall or we lost for some reason.  We sit there watching the parade of cattle and listening to the sing song of the auctioneers.  Ellen loves to go to the auction and has went by herself and bought cows and calves for us when I have been working.  So she seems to get more into it than I.  She likes sitting there watching intently knowing the next time the gate opens it is something we are going to want to buy.  BR (Before retirement)  Me - my mind was most likely wondering when the railroad was going to call and I was going to have to leave and go to work.  Or I was trying to figure out if I needed to lay off sick or lay off sickness in the family due to the fact the dog did not look to healthy this morning.  Or then I might have been thinking about going to the great restaurant there at the Treasure Valley Livestock Auction.  Dreaming of having one of those double burgers with ham.  Topped with lettuce and nice slice of tomato, pickles and onion.  For a side I think a big old plate full of french fries and catsup, or maybe potato salad and a cup of coffee.  Followed by a piece of pie, most likely apple warmed with a big old scoop of ice cream and more coffee.  Or I might have the hot beef sandwich, with a big old scoop of mashed potatoes and ladled all over that drowning it in a sea of brown rich gravy, with coffee and followed by the pecan pie and more coff….eeee I screech out a yelp most likely from the wind being knocked out of me.  I am awaked from my daydreaming by my wife’s elbow in the ribs.  Instantly my hand flips up in the air repositioning my arm to shield my now sore ribs.  One of the two ringmen or gatemen hollers “YEP” to get the auctioneers attention.  I look down in the ring to see what I just bid on.  Everyone in the sale barn is looking at me and my flopping around and wild gesturing.  I stayed with it and bought it at a reasonable amount as I regained my wind.  The cow a black angus and a strapping good calf departed the sale ring and the gate slammed shut and I gasped out my buyer number.  Good thing Ellen is a good judge of cattle. That was done now back to day dreaming as I rub my ribs.

I attempted to multitask for a while.  My mind tried to stay on the cattle auction and my stomach started on a rerun of lets see now it was ……..with a side of mashed potatoes and ladled all over that drowning in a sea of brown rich gravy, with coffee and followed by the pecan pie and more coffee.  However the auction soon dimmed and my mind returned to both worrying about the railroad calling, and should I lay off or stay marked up and my pondering the reason for laying off or taking the trip off.  However I think most likely this gave root to a bowl not a cup of clam chowder with a very liberal sprinkling of tabasco (about the only thing liberal about me anymore I have noticed) followed by plain hamburger delivered on plate of french fries, lemon meringue pie or maybe a piece of……

I feel a nudge not a poke this time.  (I am happy)  I turn to my wife and she says,  “Buy her.”  I look down into the ring, there  is a small black cow young and by her side is a nice calf.  Most all the cows we have been buying are bigger cows, more roomy and nice looking.  This cow was small and the tassel on her tail has gone missing.  The calf looks nice but I really don’t care for the cow.  She is too small and ‘punched up’ so I don’t do anything.  Ellen is giving me a dirty look.  I know I am getting into trouble here.  The auctioneer is asking to start this cow and calf way to high and he drops the start down a little and my ears are starting to massage my brain.  My stomach is starting to churn and not from the food I have thought of.  I knew what was coming next, he dropped her down a little more.  Then he said the words I knew were coming.  “If I don’t get a bid I’m splitting them up.”  Meaning the cow will sell to a beef buyer (she will go to slaughter) and the calf well go to a person who raises calves to resell or some times for veal.  The price was right but she was just a little cow and without a switch on the end of her tail.  I so hated to see that happen to this little cow and calf.  Ellen gave me the look and out of guilt and valor of I will save you little cow and up went my hand.  Someone else bid back however dropped right out.  So we were the ‘proud owners’ of this little cow and calf.

The gateman on the side where the livestock exits to must have been thinking of a double cheeseburger with fries because he thought the auctioneer had split the pair.  The cow exited the auction ring and left her calf behind.  He slammed the gate shut.  There is just something to me when I hear that gate slam shut that says its over.  It has been finaled.  What occurred next was one of those things that light up your day.  The auctioneer said to the gateman, “Hey you forgot one.” 

The gates on an auction ring or the ones I have been to are always solid and heavy built made to open and close hundreds of times a day.  Bulls and cows test them.  They run into them, they shove and push against them.    You pull a spring loaded latch from the side with a rope so that you are out of the way.   They are not like a ranch gate that you can see through.  There is usually however a small window cut into them so the gateman can make sure the last critter that sold is gone to be yarded in the proper pen.

As the gateman jerked the rope to open the gate, our little cow who now had discovered that she was missing her calf had turned and was making a run at the now opening gate.  That little cow was coming on, her eyes were wild and burning bright like a locomotive busting through snow drifts when she knocked the gate aside.  Truly what unfurled was hell hath no fury like a mother protecting her children.  She circled the ring putting both gate men behind their guards built to shield them from such action.  The calf who was just sort of standing there sniffing the wood shavings looked up to see mom very upset.  He got a good talking to in cow language and fully understood he messed up.  Momma now was making the run for the exit and the calf was running hard to keep up.  Its tail was up in the air and rear legs were digging in and out the ring they went.  The buyers and the crowd laughed.  The auctioneer looked up at my wife and I and said with a smile.  “Well she might not be very big on cow and she is sure huge on momma!”