Playtime

As we emerge from winter (yes, we know it's May, but we live in Wyoming), the grass begins to grow and the calves are enjoying the warm sunshine.  Eating, playing and sleeping are what they do best:



A tumbleweed becomes a ball to roll and a scratching post all in the same game.



Dexter calves have the unique ability to play dead while they are sleeping.



By far, the most favorite activity is eating!  Astaire demonstrates the proper technique for the camera.

Picture Taking is Difficult

The deadline for entries for the AGM Show and Sale is coming soon.  We are going to be offering one of our best fall heifers for sale - and that means the dreaded picture taking must happen.  There is truly a talent that I do not have for taking photos of cattle.  Lighting, level ground, lack of distraction - all of those things elude me during photo sessions.  Chris is absolutely patient with setting up a 7 month old heifer over and over and over again.


It's even more difficult this time of year because the grass is just starting to come in, the trees have yet to leaf out nicely and all of our girls still have a pretty scruffy winter coat to shed.

So what to do?  Over a 100 pictures yesterday and not one of them is truly good enough to properly show this lovely heifer.  Back to the drawing board and maybe a different location.  I'll hold the lead rope and let Chris try his hand at picture taking.

Stormin' and Calvin'

Calving continues right along with those unpredictable spring snow storms.  We do live in Wyoming, after all!



We've had two storms in two weeks.  The snow itself is not so bad, but the wet/rainy slush first, followed by heavy winds and snow makes for deadly consequences if you don't stay on it.  We stuffed babies and mommas in every building:



Luckily it's toward the end of the hay feeding season and Chris was able to move bales around in the hay barn to make room for a large portion of the herd.  There were babies everywhere we looked.



Even cows who wouldn't normally EVER come in to a building brought new babies inside for a break from the winds.  Dash's behind is about three inches from the door, but her new heifer Debonaire is well inside and warm!



As soon as the storms passed, the herd gets sent back out to the pastures.  Some of those little ones quickly figured out that a bed of hay was a wonderful thing!  We always have to check to make sure that we don't have calves sleeping in the feeders before we drop in a new bale.  Silly kids!

Current count:  24 calves - 12 bull calves and 12 heifers.

Calving Season is Underway

It seems like we wait forever for calving to begin!  So far, this year, we've had a very mild March with very springlike temperatures.  It's not always like this.  We can only hope it continues.

Calving started a few days early.  Apparently we forgot to explain 283 days to our momma cows!



First timer Sushi and our handsome Hondo created this little beauty.  She will be Moosters Hot Sake.  We know that she will be an obligate non-carrier of PHA and chondrodysplasia and A2A2.  Like all our heifers, she will be parentage verified.  Sushi and her dam Tuhna are both exceptional Dexters and favorites here.  We expect that Sake will be as well.




I was fortunate enough to witness the birth of Moosters Little Dipper, the daughter of Luna and Hondo.  She is an obligate non-carrier of PHA and will be A1A2.  We are reasonably certain that she is a non-carrier of chondrodysplasia, but we have sent in her tail hairs for testing to be sure.  Luna is a milk machine - we will be milking her for probably six weeks or so until Dipper is big enough to use all of the milk.  So much goodness from one little cow!




And Tracy FINALLY gave us a heifer!  We are still hopeful that this little princess, Moosters Tess Trueheart, will be a chondro carrier like her momma, but she just looks a bit too "tall" at this point.  Tail hairs pulled and on the way to the lab for testing.  Tess is PHA free and A2A2.  Sired by Machine, she is going to be stunning.



This litte beauty is the daughter of CJS Beth and Hondo.  An obligate non-carrier of PHA and Chondrodysplasia, she is A2A2.  Love her little black nose.  Meet Moosters Chicago Fire.

Most of our calves will be for sale at weaning as well as a few of our cows.  We won't make those decisions until most of our calves have been born around the end of April.  It's always a tough call to decide who stays and who goes.  If it were up to me, they would all stay!

Winter Fun

Uh, what was I thinking?  There is no winter fun.  In Wyoming, if the temperatures are above normal for the winter, then our trade off is wind.  It has been milder than usual, even with the wind, so every now and then it IS fun to get out and visit with the herd.



Sonny, out with the big herd to breed our fall calvers, is such a mooch.  He knows that my pockets are full of treats (both cake and alfalfa cubes) and he's not picky as long as a few of them land in his mouth.  He's not pushy, but he sure has a great begging face.



Even more fun was watching Amanda, the ultimate treat hound, try to steal the treats right out of Sonny's mouth.  She would love up against him like his favorite girlfriend, then lick his face and try to jerk the treat away from him.  What a prankster!



So many of the cows are really starting to show their pregnancies -- Rosaleen looks ready to go now and we still have at least 6 or 7 weeks to go!  Her 2015 calf was one of my favorites, so I'm hoping she does it again this year (think heifer!).



Then we have our first time heifers who are definitely starting to show.  Our little Gidget is giving us all the signs of having a very nice udder.  She was our Grand Champion at Wyoming last year and we hope that her calf is everything that she is and more!!  Such a scruffy look compared to all of her finery in the summer show.



Love watching those fall babies growing up.  This is Peaches 'n Cream with her momma Yanni.  At four months, she's doing us, and her sire and dam, quite proud!

Can't wait for the new ones!  That will help make the rest of the winter really fun (did I mention that Winter in Wyoming can last through May?)!!

Happy New Year! 2015 in Review

Happy 2016!  Time for a quick review of Moosters highlights for 2015 before we get too far into our wonderful New Year.



Calves.  We had calves.  Spring of 2015 was so much fun.  There were babies everywhere.  In the end, we had 37 calves for the year.  18 heifers and 19 bull calves.  Mother Nature was pretty fair for a change!  16 red and 21 black.  Nearly all were sired by either Hondo or Machine.  What a great crop.  The heifers have great homes all over the country.  We kept a small handful for ourselves and sadly waved goodbye to the rest.



We had snow in May and 60 degrees in December.  Lots of rain in the spring so our pastures held up very well until the August when someone shut off the spigot and we didn't see rain again for a long time.  100 year flooding in the town of Lusk.  Devastation beyond description.  The view above is from the back door of our vet's office.  That's his horse trailer up the telephone pole waaay down the road.  The folks in our little town picked themselves back up and kept right on going.  A true testament to the spirit and hardiness of the people who live here in Wyoming.




We drove to Harrisonburg, Virginia to attend the 2015 ADCA Annual General Meeting, Show and Sale.  Beautiful facilities, lots of fun sights (Harrisonburg or Bust was not us, but we wished we'd though of it!), trees and more trees along the way and two new heifers managed to follow us home from Kansas.  Thanks to the Hoovers, Gale and Aileen are now full fledged Moosters.  They joined their half sister Rosaleen who has been with us for two years.  We love our Hoover heifers.



Shows!  Seems like we spent most of the summer at shows.  The highlight, of course, was winning Grand Champion Female at the Wyoming State Fair with our  Moosters Gidget.  She was shown by our amazing showwoman, Ms. Calli Klein.  We are so very proud of both of them.

Nebraska State Fair is always a good time with great friends.  Another beautiful facility with an air conditioned show ring.  What more could you ask for?!

Utah State Fair is a favorite and was the 2nd largest Dexter show in the country this year.  There are pictures somewhere, but it was a busy show and there aren't too many.  Our highlight was Ms. Calli Klein bringing home the senior showmanship buckle showing Moosters Snappy Dresser.  She just takes our breath away each and every year.  This was the first show where she proudly showed every single Mooster in the show ring.  Chris and I were the runners and groomers this show.  She was also the senior herdsman award winner - quite the honor as it's voted on by all the members of the Rocky Mountain Dexter Association.  Not only does she show, but she teaches others about our breed and helps not only us, but others in so many many ways.  We couldn't be more proud of her.

And lastly, the Missouri Dexter Breeders Show and Sale (yes, we practically lived in the truck).  We delivered several Moosters to new homes along the way and once again, enjoyed seeing good friends and beautiful animals at the largest Dexter show this year.  Ridings Farm Gertrude followed us home to join her half sister Ridings Farm Kristi Ann.  They are genuinely the two most people oriented females in our herd.

Gertrude

And the icing on our cake was the arrival of Sonny.  Along with our wonderful Hondo, we have the two bulls that will take us into our Dexter future for some years.  So much to look forward to in 2016!

Welcome New and Newer

We waited out weather here and there before our next herd bull could make the long ride from Oklahoma to Wyoming.  It was worth the wait!  Here's Sonny!  We are so very pleased that Sheila and Don from Euchee Creek Dexters agreed to let us be his new owners.  He's everything we'd hoped for and more!  What a gentle soul this guy has -- we know that he'll pass this temperament (and his great looks) on to his calves.



He was so sad to have to wait until this past weekend to meet his girls.  He called to them non-stop while he was waiting.  At last the time had come and the girls were pretty excited too!




He will sire all six of our fall calves;  Yanni, Wrencesky, Saphire, Gale, Aileen and Rhiannon will be the first to give us Sonny calves in 2016.  We'll have plenty of Hondo and Machine offspring in the the spring of 2016.  The fun will come as we begin to make our matches for the boys for 2017 calves. Hondo and Sonny are just so handsome!

We will be offering Machine for sale before our breeding season.  He's a handsome young bull too. Proven herd sire with 12 2015 registered calves on the ground (and multiple unregistered steers). He's parentage verified, pha and chondrodysplasia free, A2A2, homozygous polled and he carries red. He's also just very closely related to too many of our girls.  Let us know if you are interested!



Our last arrival of the year is Moosters Winter Weather.  She is a keeper - we've already decided that she will be staying here.  Love this little girl!