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Horns N Hooves
🐄 Horns and Hooves: The Highland Cattle Podcast
Are you tired of sorting through bad advice about raising Highland and Highland Cross cattle? Do you need practical, proven strategies to make smart decisions for your farm? You've come to the right place!
Welcome to Horns and Hooves, the podcast dedicated to being your go-to source for all things Highland and Highland Cross cattle.
Join your hosts, Lori Racicky (from Creekside Highland Haven) and Taylor Hauser (from Hausers Homestead). We started this podcast because we learned the hard way - through our own mistakes and by trusting the wrong advice. We know what it's like to feel all alone, juggling costly decisions and second-guessing every move.
The good news is: You don't have to anymore!
What We Cover:
We dive into topics that truly matter to the everyday cattle owner, offering real stories and honest advice from people who live it. We keep it real and share what works, learning from experience, not nonsense.
- Farm Economics: Expert tips on managing feed costs and making financially savvy choices.
- Buying & Selling: Strategies for navigating the complexity of livestock auctions and sales.
- The Hard Truths: We tackle the subjects others avoid, like getting straight answers about cattle sizes, temperament, and quality.
- Community Support: Our mission is to build a strong community where everybody feels welcome, no matter how long you've been in the game.
Our goal is to cut through the noise and give you the practical takeaways you need to raise a healthy, successful herd.
Hit that subscribe button and give us a five-star rating to help our community grow!
Follow Us on Social Media: Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok
Horns N Hooves
Cold Weather Cattle Management: Water, Hay, and Calving Horror Stories
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, we're diving deep into the realities of winter cattle management, sharing tips, tricks, and a few crazy farm stories. We're talking about the challenges of keeping water thawed, how we're adapting our feeding programs, and the unexpected excitement of late-fall/early-winter calving. We want to hear what everyone else is doing for winter feeding, feeders, and waterers - it’s always interesting to learn from other regions and experiences. We’ll also be sharing a hairy calving situation we just experienced, which turned into a crucial learning experience.
We discuss the pain of constantly running extension cords and needing water heaters for tanks, and the overall tediousness of checking cows in the cold weather, especially when you don't live right where your cows are. Plus, we're celebrating a much-needed barn upgrade, which felt like a surprise from Santa himself.
Key Takeaways Of The Episode
The struggle is real when it comes to keeping water thawed and calculating feed weight and waste during the winter.
Hay feeders are a hot topic, as different styles work for different people - we want to know what kind of feeders you use to minimize waste.
Winter calving is a big commitment and requires constant checking and potentially intervening, especially in cold temperatures, as things can go south quickly.
Episode Highlights
- The Winter Water Struggle: Discussing water heaters, running extension cords, and the challenges of breaking ice in water tanks (sometimes a few inches thick!).
- The Calving Learning Curve: A detailed story about a recent calving where a heifer and calf needed intervention due to the cold, despite mild Nebraska weather, and how we had to tube-feed colostrum.
- Feeder Safety: Highlighting the dangers of certain feeder styles after losing a calf last year and the recent hairy situation of a cow getting stuck.
- Santa's Barn Upgrade: Celebrating the much-anticipated arrival of insulated barn pieces and a head gate that will make winter management and handling registered cattle much easier.
Timestamps
- Welcome Back & Winter Prep Overview: 00:01:00
- The Water Heater and Extension Cord Pain: 00:04:15
- Discussing Hay Feeders and Feed Waste: 00:10:45
- Feeder Safety Issues and Stuck Cows: 00:19:10
- A Hairy Calving Situation and Intervention: 00:27:00
- The Much-Needed Barn Upgrade Arrives: 00:34:20
Follow us on social media so you don't miss out on any advice, auction updates, or crazy farm stories!
Find us on Facebook: Horns N Hooves
Instagram: @hornsnhoovesauctionpodcast
TikTok: @Hornsnhoovespodcast
Website: hornsnhoovesauction.com
Production Credit: Edited and produced by @the32collective_ / https://www.the32collective.co/