The beginning of this week was pre-occupied with other requirements that saw me jetting off to Denver, Colorado for a few days. On return, I slipped back into my class schedule of a Thursday - Beef Systems. We jumped into the mini buses and headed towards Alta Vista, Kansas to the Lyons Ranch. This ranch is owned and managed by Amy and Karl Langveldt. Amy is Jan and Frank Lyons daughter (the bull sale I attended a few weeks ago) and Amy is also Debbie Lyons-Blythes' sister; all connected! We spent a few hours talking over their operation, how they manage their seedstock Angus herd between two ranches and how family business works. Amy and Karl also own a local salebarn so we spent a bit of time discussing the goings-on of such a facility. We stepped outside into the freezing wind (Kansas weather!) to check out some bulls to be sold as private treaty and some heifers due to be AI'd. After enjoying some delicious hot chocolate and cookies, we headed back to Manhattan.
Friday was a classic day of classes where in Beef Science, we re-visted the nutritional requirements of cattle going onto feed and the best way to progress cattle through rations. Friday afternoon I got together with the girls to watch a concert in Aggieville - a fun time!
The weekend proved to be relatively quiet, although Sunday was the real highlight. I was picked up by a vet student and we made our way to Debbie Lyons-Blythe's ranch in White City, Kansas. Upon arrival, we got straight down to work with a mob of cows and calves. We had 5 vaccines to give to the calves, as well as putting in fly tags and castrating with rings where needed. After we'd done the first lot, we moved a few cattle around and breaked for a quick lunch. Following lunch, we rode motorbikes out into the paddock to muster the next mob of cows and calves. Using the feed truck as a guide, we walked the cattle back to the yards and set about vaccinating the calves. Once we'd finished that, we all went back out into the paddock to bring it the next lot of heifers. We gathered the 350 heifers (who were a little more spritely than the cows and calves) and walked them back to the yards. At that point it was late afternoon and time to go home, so we said our goodbyes and off we went. Once back in Manhattan, I had a quick shower and change before meeting some girlfriends to watch the sunset. We drove out to the K-State Cow Calf Unit and parked up with blankets and snacks to watch the sunset. A perfect end to the week!
