E4—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, November 6,1982
Flat Stone Lick
I (Continued from Page E2l
•“As a result, we have quiet
animals that are fairly trouble
free,” he boasts. “In our area
there are a lot of people who work
off the farm. They need the kind of
cattle that aren’t hard calvers and
that are good milkers.”
in the farm’s breeding program,
Les says he “attempts to follow the
trends striving for more frame
while still keeping milkability
without hard calving. ’ ’
“Our cows aren’t the biggest in
the industry,” Les concedes, “but
they’re bigger than average. We’re
selling a reliable genetic package
toa person who needs it.”
In the process ol selecting
genetically superior progeny, Les
says the policy at Flat Stone Lick is
to keep only about 12 bull calves
out of each year’s crop. The
remainder are castrated and kept
on the farm for one year, after
which they are sold as lightweight
feeders, in merchandising bull
calves, Les notes most are sold to
commercial cattle breeders.
Commenting on the difficulty of
selling purebred bulls to com
mercial operations, Les admits
"it’s hard to get $lOO over beef
price for purebred bulls. People
don’t want to pay for the premium
of management." He also cited the
same problem when mer
chandising purebred cows and
heifers.
Nevertheless, Les stresses Flat
Stone Lick calves will continue to
be purebred Polled Herefords.
Through genetic manipulation, he
says the Polled Hereford breeders
are “attempting to get their cat
tle’s frame size up in order to have
a desirable end product for steer
sales." But, he says, the pressure
from Mother Nature is to go
smaller.
One of the problems Les says he
sees with the modern, larger
framed Polled Hereford cows is
the fact that they will cost more to
maintain, requiring more gram to
keep them cycling. He also says he
fears structural faults will make
calving ease a problem, especially
with two-year-old, first-calf
heifers.
At Flat Stone Lick, Les says
calving has never been a problem.
This year they only had to assist
with six calves out of a total of 88.
And, two of those assists were the
result of bad presentations, he
explains.
Flat Stone Lick’s cow herd
doesn’t receive any quantity of
grain, and show prospects don’t
receive special treatment. Les
says that some silage is fed with
hay during the cold months. Since
grass tetany is such a problem in
the area, he feeds a half pound ot
ground ear corn per cow. He
combines this with corn silage
topdressed with magnesium oxide
for their daily diets from
Thanksgiving to Memorial Day.
Flat Stone Lick’s calving season
runs from January through March,
a three-month period during which
cows are kept in a restricted area.
Although Les says the farm has
calving stalls, he notes he likes his
cows to calve "on frozen ground.
I’ve had frozen ears and tails
already, but our Polled Herefords
are winter hardy. Our biggest
problem comes with mud. ’ ’
Two other problems that plague
the cattle at Flat Stone Lick are
parasites, like coccidiosis, and
pink eye. To fight the parasite
battle, Les says they employ
drenching as a problem-solving
weapon treating calves over five
h
V > ,
Nine-year-old Kimberly Midla exhibited the champion heifer at the Pennsylvania Polled
Hereford Junior Show this past summer. The heifer later went on to be tagged reserve
champion of the open show that same day. Proud mother, Nancy, far right, beams a
happy smile.
consecutive days. Kor the pink-eye
problem, Les says they inject a *2
cc mixture of penicillin and cor
tisone into the membrane ot the
eyelid as soon as the eye begins to
dram. This is coupled with the
traditional pink eye spray treat
ment
Managing the breeding herd is a
challenging task for most cattle
breeders. At Flat Stone Lick the
cows are given a five-week period
after calving during which they
are bred artificially. After this, the
cows are turned out to pasture viil,
three held bulls
Accorduig to l/cs, llus >eai tin
farm had two-tturds ot then . ows
conceive alter beitiK serviced
artificially.
Calves are allowed to stay on the
I SANTA
f SAYS...
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cows until Oct. I. explains that
only a few weeks before this
weaning date are they introduced
to creep feed. At the time of
weaning, the calves are in
noculated with various vaccines,
wormed and degrubbed.
Cows are pregnancy checked in
September, Les notes, adding that
any open cows are culled im
mediately and sent to auction.
Prior to the examination, all the
cows in Klat Stone Lick’s ac
credited herd received their
brucellosis blood tests and
tuberculosis vaccination. The
"preg” checks are done when the
veterinarian returns to lead the
THlesl
Les sums up the tai ill’s
p)nlusoph> on raising I'oiled
ONLY $7.50 Per Year ors 13.00 "FOR TWO YEARS
IN PA, NJ. MD. DE. NY. VA & WV.
(Other Areas $14.00 Per Year or
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\'« , ,->
HFtsSMfeg
COUNTY
■% mg
Hcrdord cattle, .saying. We have
respectable cattle, but not world
trendsetters. They’re not groomed
to compete with the well-fitted
show cattle they’re just well
grown.”
In reflecting on their 15 years ol
record-keeping and the resulting
Benchmark Dam designations,
Les comments that the two-teet
thick stack of records have
provided an essential management
tool.
"First you have to know your
cows in order to make decisions.
Then you take.your records and
make more decisions,” notes Les.
He comments that each of these'
‘decisions taken separately is not as
(I urn to Page E 5)
ITATE
> *T V
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