Provider: Ryan & Hope
Pjesky
Profession: Farmers/Ranchers
Hometown: Goltry, Oklahoma
Spring of 2008
March
With the month of March comes lambing season. When the ewes are nearing
the time when they will have babies, they get penned in a large
barn every night. This ensures that any babies born will stay close
to their mothers. Each morning I check the barn, and any lambs and
their mothers are moved into 5’x5’ pens with bedding so that
I can closely monitor the health of both the lambs and their mothers. After
three days, the ewes and lambs are moved out into a pen with other
ewes and lambs. Before they are turned out, lambs get paint, numbered,
and vaccinated. Paint numbers help us quickly identify the lambs
and their mothers in case there is a problem with either the ewe
or lambs. The
shots they receive help immunize them against several diseases. Much
like you need shots when you are little, so do little lambs. Over
a span of 20 days, we had 46 baby lambs.
Baby ewes enjoying the spring
During March, we also move cattle off of the wheat
we intend to harvest. Over the span of one week, we gather and sort
all of our cattle by size, and then we put them back out on grass pasture
or wheat pasture that we want to graze off. ‘Grazing off wheat’ means
allowing the cattle to “harvest” the wheat instead of letting
it produce grain for harvest. Cattle gain up to 3 pounds a day when
they are eating wheat. Most years, the pounds of beef are worth more than
the grain we would have harvested.
Cattle ‘grazing off’ pasture
We really make good use of our semi-truck
and cattle trailer during this time. We start fixing fence on all
our places later in the month. Each year we go around nearly 20 miles
of barbed wire fence, making sure the wire is tight and no posts need to
be replaced.
Each day in March is very busy. In the early
mornings we check ewes, then work with cattle all day, and then work more
with the lambs and ewes in the evening. Many nights I get up to go
check on the ewes in the middle of the night, especially if it is cold. Things
look really good around here; I think it’s going to be a great spring.
Semi-truck and cattle trailer
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