Preparing for the Parish Livestock Show

The Jefferson Davis Livestock Show is tomorrow.  Russ is a senior and this will be his last Parish Show.  A week ago we shared how we gave the cows a nice haircut so that they are looking their best.  Today we'll show you our little touch up job that we did on the weekend to really fine tune them.

First, though, we took down the temporary fence in the sacrifice pasture.  That is a pasture outside the cows' normal pasture that we "stockpile" grass in to feed them when the winter frost kills the main pasture.  Cows are like people at a salad bar that pick out the good stuff.  The cows ate all the good stuff from the pasture and when that is all gone, suddenly they'll eat grass they used to turn their noses up at!

I'm going to use the temporary electric fence around the chicken tractors as I want to keep the nosy cows away from them.  I use an extension cord reel to roll up the electric fence as I disconnect the hot wire from the step-in posts.


Rolling up the wire

Here is a better picture of the step-in post.  It has several notches where you can position your wire at different heights.  The post is made of plastic, but has a metal, sharpened spike at the bottom and a flat piece that you can step on to push the post in the ground.

Electric wire reel and a step-in post

I position the posts about 30 feet apart from each other and I find it works out great.  The temporary fence is quick and easy to put up and quicker to take down.  We pulled it down today and I'll show what we did with it tomorrow.

Pulling up posts in the sacrifice pasture

Then we got out the clippers and really took our time trimming the cows extra good.  Last week we did a rough cut.  This week we do the detail work.  We got the hair inside their ears, around their udders, underneath their 'underarms', and their tails.  Here is Magnolia looking very nice and slick.  Fortunately for the closely shaven cows, it is 70 degrees outside in late January!


Maggie Mae sportin' a new haircut

Rosie just got a touch-up job and is now crossing the bridge back into the barnyard.  Rosie looks especially nice.  Last year she won Grand Champion at the Parish Show and Reserve Grand Champion at the District Show.  We didn't attend the State Show last year, but if Rose Ethel does well this year, we'll bring her to the State Show since it is Russ' last year to show his Dairy Cows.


Crossing the Bridge

I thought I'd show you this.  After trimming Daisy and Rosie, we realized that it was getting to be late afternoon and would soon be milking time.  They both had razor stubble - little hairs everywhere.  We didn't want to risk getting hair in the milk bucket(who likes hair in their milk?), so we got out the leaf blower and blew them off real good.  It worked like a charm!

Thar she blows!

I'm not sure Daisy was excited about the noise and wind from the blower.  She was kind of annoyed.


Notice her aerodynamic ears - she wants to run away!

Yeah, she really didn't like it and shook her head to tell us to knock it off.


Please!

As the sun set in the Western sky, the girls all had new haircuts and are all ready for the livestock show.  Trimming 3 animals who are largely uncooperative is a long process, a process that is hard on your back, I might add.  But the work is done.


A beautiful sunset highlights a beautiful day.  Good night, everyone.