Workin' Cows.

So, before we get to the "meat" (pun intended) of this post I have something to get off my chest and that I did not miss over spring break, so here goes. The guy that sits beside me in class has the worst breath ever!! I'm literally nauseous by the end of the morning. Seriously people, it is bad!!! What gets me is that he has a girlfriend and is sitting with his friends. I actually thought he was gay until I found out he had a girlfriend. Why do none of these people help him out?!? Today he kept coughing and I was about ready to just get up and leave. Our classroom is full with no were better to move to. It's a real predicament... 

Well I feel better now that I have shared that with the world. 

Now to the fun stuff! Fun is maybe a relative term. I think it's fun! :)

I helped my cousins work cows last Friday. We work cows every Thanksgiving {check out pictures from this past year here} but there are always fall calves that need to castrated, so we do a few in the spring.

Things look a little different in the spring and it isn't quite as wild. Seriously, go look at those pictures.

The sky was blue and the grass is green.

The cows were rounded up with there calves. Kenny dewormed all the cows. It is a spray that is sprayed on there backs and really helps prevent other parasites as well.

The cows were sorted out and we split the babies off into a separate pen to be worked.

In the fall (Thanksgiving) we vaccinate all the mama cows as well as the babies. This takes a lot longer. This time we just had to work with the calves.
Each calf gets a shot and there ear notched so that they can be told apart from neighbors cows. Everyone puts there notch in a different place on the ear.

The males all get castrated as well as a shot and ear notch. Some people don't really understand why we have to castrate the males so I'm hear to fill you in. In order to get good meat from them, they must be castrated. Meat from a bull is very tough because of all the testosterone. So we take away the testosterone. I'm actually vegetarian but this is what I have learned in all my classes.

I know, I need to work on not making weird faces. 

 I gave vaccines, Kenny castrated and Luke and Elisa tackled. I guess we all got in on a little of the tackling though.

Luke would twist the head and then expect Elisa or me to grab the flailing back legs. I think we are going to switch things up next time. He had the better end of the deal and didn't understand why we were all the sudden afraid of calves.

Proof that I got kicked. It is actually looking better than it did this weekend. I have got my arm smashed so bad I thought it was broken but it never bruised or anything, just really sore. Nobody every believed me. I don't even remember getting kicked and I get this.

There were a few calves that must have got missed this fall that gave us a bit of trouble. (they were big boys) Other than that, it went pretty quick, even though we had about half as many people.

Questions?? Please ask! I like talking about cows. :)