Most Hated Job On The Farm...

I almost forgot one of my all time favorites....trying to control prairie dogs. It doesn't matter how much shooting or poisoning or baiting we do, they keep coming right back over from our neighbors across the fence. ARGH!!! 

Good old gophers!  We finally got the Strychnine poison licenced again here after many years of it being banned. As a result, the prairie dogs ( gophers) almost took over the pastures and hayland. The tree huggers thought it was inhumane to kill them this way, so it was banned. It has been brought back for a few months to help us get a control on these varmits again. So this means I have been walking and riding in my gator for days on end, dumping this poison down the thousands of holes. Seems to be working.

As for other most hated jobs on the farm, I have been thinking about this since this thread started. Most of my most hated jobs left when I seeded the last field down to grass and I finally decided it was cheaper to buy my grain than grow it. This has been the case about 8 years out of every 10 years. I have few regrets for doing this.I used to hate cleaning out bins, or spraying crops. Now the worst thing I can think of is tearing down old fence. I don't mind building new fence, but getting the old stuff rolled and out of the way, gives me pains where I do not have windows!

cleaning stalls!

my dad bought some hereford cows about 10 years ago and ive had to push back and sew up about 20 prolapses since then . only about 10 left out of the potload and i cant mait for them to leave      <cowboy>

Anything that gets my socks wet!  I can be covered from head to toe with dirt, grease, and\or manure but if my socks get wet I am done...I hate wet socks.  I also never liked anything to do with pigs, no matter how much soap or Tammy Hog Cream that smell seems to stick with you for a long time.

Mike

Hauling squares for me to. We are about to put up ours in a couple of weeks.

Anything to do with the rasing of tobacco, used to be pulling plants and weeding plant beds if you have never done this you don't know what fun you missed.  Also at the top of my list would be topping nothing like getting cramps in both of your arms soaking wet from dew in 90 degree heat.  And to finish my list would be cutting and housing the only aspect of rasing tobacco that I did like was selling the crop.  I raised my last crop in 1999 and won't rasie another, by the way we raised 250 acres of burley.

I had forgotten all about thistles, that would have to be very close to the top, you just can't seem to get rid of them ever, we thought we had it done here several years ago, they took a rest and came back stronger than ever.
I had forgotten about prairie dogs, we don't have them here, but we were at Majors one year and came to a clearing and it was just amazing to see how much damage those little things can do.

  I haven't did this job per say, but close. One of the worst jobs would have to be skinning dead cattle when they arrive @ the rendering plant during the summer. I worked for some years in a locker and the gut barrels and hide piles can get fairly disgusting. Even driving a dead truck would take some stomach this time of the year.  I think Mike on Dirty Jobs should have a go @ skinning carcasses. Brent

I'm pretty sure he did Brent, he said it was one of the worst jobs ever(working at a rendering plant, that is).

zach said:

weed eating around like 2 miles of electric fence.

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Zach I weedeat with Roundup.

We did that yesterday!

Mine is cleaning/stripping down stalls and then putting the bedding and stuff back down.  I really don't have a problem with rats because we have a bunch of rat traps and when we see one we kill it. in the past two or so years I havn't seen as many around my place

afhm said:

zach said:

weed eating around like 2 miles of electric fence.

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Zach I weedeat with Roundup.

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Be very, very careful with roundup.  If a cow eats roundup while it is freshly sprayed, during the first trimester of pregnancy the calf can be born without eyes.  True story, my sister has a cow that had a calf born missing its eyes.  After looking on the internet I asked if the cow had ate any fresh sprayed weeds and she remembered that the cow drove them crazy while they were spraying because she kept following them and grabbing mouthfuls of grass. 

Cleaning out the drain pit in our wash rack.  It is not big enough for a scoop shovel, so you have to use a little kiddie shovel.  One time I found approximately 15 decapitated mouse heads.  No bodies, just the heads.  That was disgusting.

afhm said:

zach said:

weed eating around like 2 miles of electric fence.

Click to expand...

Zach I weedeat with Roundup.

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i did dome weed eating with a weed eater. notice i said some, not all of it

I hate moving snow---again and again and again!!  Sometimes I think I know most of the snowflakes on a first name basis---at least it seems I meet the same ones over and over--many of them on an imtimate basis.  I can't think of anything I dread worse than waking up in the morning knowing that I have to leave for the airport in 3 hours and we've had 2 inches of snow and 40 mph winds all night.  It seems like its usually about a minus 15-20 when this happens and the ditches are already level full in the open and mounded several feet high wherever it piles up.  Nothing is more defeating to me than watching the snowbanks that I just spent hours clearing from the driveways filling back in within minutes.  Bah Humbug, Holy Sh-t, and pass the ammunition that makes me mad!!

Keeping cattle in a barn that holds moisture and gets wet easy and don;t let air move through. and also can only be cleaned with a fork. it sucks.

There are some easy jobs i hate doing and i dont know why, like:

Bringin water to the calves at prospects ( i alwys spill more than half of it on me )
Blowin off the calves ( just too boring i guess )

But besides that everything is alright.

Oh and my favorite ( but least successful ) thing to do is helping A.I with my dad and my Ai'er person  (lol)

just had an experience that i forgot about.  Swinging a corn knife on thistles and weeds along the hot wire when it is 90+ and 85% humidity.  Saving grace was the creek gap needed fixed too , so a dip in the creek helps.  unfortunately, that was preceeded by getting the cleanup bull out of the neighbors cows .