Pastures looking good

Jun 13, 2022

Many cattle were turned out to pasture earlier than normal this year.

Melissa Atchison is vice president of Manitoba Beef Producers.

"There wasn't a lot of a choice. You were either out of seed or you scrounged some up from far away but the feed pile is definitely gone and there's certainly not a lot of reserves going into next year. It's a first year for many folks not having a reserve pile going into the carry over for the winter. There was some cows going out maybe perhaps before the pastures were ready but desperate times call for desperate measures."

Atchison says pastures are looking good this year, although some of the low lying areas are still under water.

She commented on how forage crops are looking.

"Pretty good actually. The alfalfa is coming up nicely. Had a bit of a frost...It did touch some things here and there. The alfalfa looks a little bit curled up and a bit of winterkill on some of that alfalfa actually. It was a bit stressed last year with the drought, obviously. Forage crops are coming up good. We could just use some more heat...we actually could use a little bit of rain."

Atchison notes it's good to see dugouts topped up after the drought last year.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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