E.B.'s View from the Cow Pasture By E.B. HARRIS
Getting a Herd Moved - Part 1 I came into the office the other night and, by my usual routine, went over the list of people I had to return calls to. One of them was a note to call Charles Woodlief about selling his cow herd. I am going to give you a little history on Charles. He has been a friend and customer for many years. Charles and my brother, Jimmy, were in class together at NCSU. They graduated together in 1969. Charles was a good customer of the Granville County feeder calf sale. He would bring good solid calves that would seem to fit in the right spot. Most of them were five weight steers and heifers, and most were black baldies. I had made mention to Shane in the past few months that Charles had been a regular customer to bring cattle to the house for us to send to the weekly market sales, but we had not heard from him lately. I gave it a little thought before I called him. Charles is right on Hwy. #1, approximately 30 miles north of Raleigh, a few miles north of Kittrell and south of Henderson. Charles’ cattle have always had an easy disposition, and he tried to use very good bulls over the years to continue to improve his cow herd. He
purchased bulls for several decades from Frank Harris, a fellow cattleman who would travel the state over and purchase top notch bulls. Frank would use them a couple of years and save the heifers off them and then sell the bulls to Charles. The last few years, Charles would come to our auctions and buy high quality bulls. I gave Charles a call, and he went on to say, “E.B., I guess it’s been more than 60 years that I have been in the cattle business and my feet are giving me a lot of trouble and I feel like I can’t take care of the cattle anymore.” We set up a date when I could come up and ride through the herd and make a market plan that would get him the most for his cattle in the time frame he wanted them gone in. I took the liberty of throwing a few bags of feed in the back of my truck and headed over to Charles’ on the day we were to meet. I met him at his back door, and he got in my truck and directed me where to go. It had been some time since I had been on the farm. I had been there in the ‘70s and ‘80s to load some cattle for him. As we drove to the backside of the farm, we talked about how many head he thought was out
there. He said, “It’s one big BWF bull, and I’m not sure exactly how many cattle we have, but I think it’s around 103 head. There was a group of 25 first calf heifers in the pasture close by the house and grain bins. The others grazed on more than 100 acres of pasture and woodland. He was directing me where to go. We went over to the back pasture and there was a group. He said to go on through to the next pasture to the back corner, and there was a group there. We worked our way back up, and the cows were curious. I walked down to the biggest group and took some pictures and notes that would help in marketing the cattle. While I was standing there looking at the largest group, they started milling toward the truck. A cow’s curiosity can get up without saying anything, and they will start calling up the rest of the herd. There were a few of them talking, and in a few minutes, you would hear another one where we had come from answer. I looked, and they were coming across the field. Charles feeds his cows in the winter in a feeding area with several 10’ feed troughs using some commodity feed, ground ear corn, and other feed products,
“If you have cattle, pastureland, or raise hay like I do, you need to call Donna Byrum. In 10 minutes on the hood of my pickup, she signed me up for a program that I had no idea about. The next time she came by the farm, she brought me a check! ~ E.B. Harris
DONNA BYRUM
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The Carolina Cattle Connection q NOVEMBER 2021
and stretches his hay a good way. We drove up to the feed area, and even though he had not fed them at the feed troughs as they were on grass, they started coming toward the feeding area. I asked Charles if it would be ok if I put a little feed out. He said sure, so I put out a few bags of feed, and in just a few minutes, I got a count on them and added in the first calf heifers with their calves. We came right up on over 100 head of cattle. I think it was 104. Charles said, “I think that is pretty close to all of them except I think I have a few out on the hay field that has been sprayed that is mighty rich. I understand I have some over there but I have not been able to get them back in. I figured I had better concentrate on the bigger group first.” He runs a two strand electric fence, and the cattle are gentle, so he felt like they stick close by to the cattle in the pasture. Time was of the essence to make this happen and get them marketed and be safe for all concerned, so we came up with a plan that I would bring my portable wheel corral and some extra corral panels. We thought we could get the bigger group fairly easy if he started feeding them in that general direction. Charles’ help started moving troughs closer to the pasture on the road where we could get the wheel corral in. I set up the corral, and his man started feeding them for a few days. We planned on the given date to get the cattle up. Plans were for us to have two semi and two gooseneck stock trailers. We could get those more than 100 head fairly easily. We arrived shortly after daybreak on Tuesday morning, and everything went pretty much to plan except about ten younger calves did not want to go in the corral. I asked Charles if we could use his truck to go down and rearrange the corral, close the big group off in the front of the corral, and then open up the corral panels and ease around the group of calves. Shane and I got in Charles’ truck since the calves were used to that. All the other trucks and trailers were staged out of sight down the road ½ mile to keep all cattle calm. We worked those ten calves up
