Red Doc Farm

Last weekend my friend Emilio Sanchez invited me to go to his farm in Belen, New Mexico, with him and another friend from Nevada, Austen. His father, Doctor Sanchez, has been raising Santa Gertrude and working in genetics improvement for 30 years. In the farm they have a selection of show animals and bulls for sale and also some heifers and steers that are being prepared for the bigger feedlots. For feeding the animals they have in the farm alfalfa and another grass (that I don’t remember which) all flood irrigated (now was all dry because of the winter). They also buy alfalfa and red-top hay and fed cracked corn. The pastures are used for hay and grazing. In the other fields that they have is all rangeland. Is amazing how the animals can survive with sow few supply of feed and having to walk for miles searching for water. I have never been in the Sertão (Northeast Brazil) but is probably similar to the conditions around there. The annual rain average is something like 9 inches (230 mm), so you can imagine how dry it is. The animals in the farm were all in a really good corporal score (Emilio said that is due to the molasses and mineral supplementation that the animals have in the rangelands and feed for the fed animals) but we saw some other animals in farms around that were weak and score close to 2 – 2.5. There is a good variety of grasses and shrubs for the animals to eat (blue grama, ) that can even finish animals in those adverse conditions. Another source of feed that the animals use is the cactus (like the “plama” in the Sertão).

Because it is a arid region the hooves of the cows grow a lot (there is no rocks to serve as sandpapers) and we had to take some cows to cut the hooves. For that, a sanding machine is used and the cows are “laid down” in the chute (hydraulic chute) and the bottom part of the chute (now horizontally positioned) opens so you can tie the members and work safely (safety first is always the rule).     

It was a good weekend working, something that I miss a lot here. Thanks a lot for Emilio, Doc Sanchez and all the family for this great time and lots of learning.