Shipping Steers 2008
It’s been a remarkable summer as we began to punctuate our year with the shipping of our steer calves last Thursday – before the new calves come, before cooler weather and any real chance of rain returns to start our season again. With even more invested in time, energy and money than usual, Robbin and I drove down to the irrigated pasture for an evening look before we shipped them. Bittersweet to think of them leaving.
We had planned to sort two loads several days prior to shipping to allow the calves to regain the shrink lost in the sorting, but we opted to ship and sort them on the same day because of the growing uncertainties surrounding an outbreak of tuberculosis at a Fresno County dairy – hoping to avoid TB testing that would have required running the calves through the chute to have a veterinarian inject a ‘purified protein derivative’ at the tailhead of each and then to run them through again for a reading 72 hours later. Unfortunately, other species of the Mycobactermium, not infectious to humans, complicate diagnosis with false positive reactions, requiring yet another set of testing.
It was tough call to absorb the shrink on shipping day, but TB testing didn’t seem fair to the calves who’d been through the chute numerous times already to satisfy the current vaccination preferences of the feedlots. A long ways from any dairies and not in contact with any stray cattle, the chance of TB in our calves was nil.
Bob and Randy Baxley, local rep for Stampede.com, the Internet auction.
Clarence at the gate.
John watching from the scales.
Loading the truck.
See Robert 'Shoofly' Shufelt's a wonderful lithograph entitled "Down Time". Copy & Paste Link:
www.studio-w.com/shoofly/New%20Images/zoom%206-2.htm