Belle Creek Stock Farm

10/01/2026

2026, the bad gift that has kept gifting.

Not a lot of productivity to update on in the month of September again.

No haying has been accomplished. And we have given up hope on anymore haying being done. Got a whole 110 acres of haying done this year…thankfully we have a couple thousand bales (not all good quality, but bales nonetheless) as leftover from years prior. We got our wheat straw put up on a deal with a neighbour, and have more to put up when the barley is finally combined!

The cattle are doing alright. Tis the season of slowly bringing cows closer to home. And more calves crawling through fences! Talking with a few cattle producers. Hearing of calves maybe not being as big this year. Putting it down too the heat and bugs, while also the rain, the grass is more water than nutrients. So yes our calves definitely could be bigger but considering, we’re happy with the calves. Especially the late group once again.

Harvest, we’ve been plucking away at. We got 95% of our wheat off. Had to leave what was in water. Tied into some canola and have done some standing and currently in the swaths. Then go back to standing canola again. The wheat yield shocked us, given the bad hail damage on it in July. The canola has been field by field. The first was ok. And the next two we’ve been quite happy with. Not record breaking, but by the sounds of it, should be happy with. We have canola, barley and our soybeans left. While our corn still needs chopped. Ground conditions are the biggest worry for all of them. But like everyone, it is what it is. It’ll eventually get done.

With the wet fall we have had, I’d just like to include the link to the Manitoba Farmer Wellness Program. Farmings tough, especially this year. Know that you’re not alone.
https://manitobafarmerwellness.ca

Also in September, we lost Uncle Ken. Uncle Ken could be found driving around the backroads here keeping tabs on the progress of the farm. Always asking questions and answering our questions about the land and history of it. As well as his incredible witching for water expertise we used many times! We have hope he’s up there searching hard for that Mother Nature, and looking to give her a piece of his mind!

October looks to be busy again. The custom manure hauling crew just showed up yesterday and will look to get all 9 pens cleaned up. Luckily we got snuck in the list as we have some half dry land that it can be spread on. Our great minds also booked preg checking in September for next week. So we have preg check of the breeding heifers on Monday and both cow herds on Friday! While also look to keep plugging away combining and someday the corn will get chopped. Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had corn chopped in November. But maybe the land is drier than we think, lol! We’ll tackle it as it comes because that’s all we can do!

Good luck to all combining and hope you’re doing well with the stress of the fall!

09/04/2026

You thought we’d be haying in August? Hahaha another good joke.

August was spent with more time moving pairs around to grass. That’s about it other than the odd jobs here and there.

Just as we got fired up to start haying, we got 120 acres up in good fashion. The ground was still quite damp. But we couldn’t wait any longer. As we finished it up, and the ground was looking drier on many other fields we got our hopes up. Until we were blessed with another 5.25” inch soaked on August 14. Thus flooding our most of our land again. We currently sit at about 20% done haying. We still have a bit of hope that we could maybe get some more done later in September if things ever dry again.

The only upside with that rain, is all our crops were already drowned out from the first 5” soaker in the summer. So no new crop was drowned out. The wheat that was hailed badly in July has come back with vengeance and looks a lot better than we expected. Canola looks alright. It’ll be desiccated here in the next few days. Barley has smaller heads this year, but looks good. We’ll see what the yield says and if we go back to our old variety. Soybeans look fantastic where they aren’t water problems. Have a quarter of winter triticale to seed if the land ever dries up enough.

The cattle are doing great. Could definitely tell some of the calves weren’t doing as good in July with the extreme heat and flies. But when it cooled off in August. The calves seemed to start picking up pounds again! Also had a surprise new calf in the late group about a week ago. Not sure how, but maybe now we’re done calving for the year?

As September is here. If it dries up, we’ll be busy. Barley is going to get sprayed anyday here. Canola will be sprayed by plane. Combining will start anytime the weather allows. Haying will continue if land rolls of some water. Seeding will begin for the one quarter of it allows. And making straw bales! We also booked our preg checking for early October so that’s in the near future too!

Although we were super blessed with another healthy addition to the family on August 25. No matter what is happening on the farm, there’s blessings and bright spots to always look at!

Happy Harvest and let’s hope the weather starts to do something that we are happy about!!

08/06/2026

A wet June was followed up by a wet July.

In the last post I talked about haying in July. That was funny! Not an acre was cut. Due to being underwater and to wet. I forget the exact day. But we had a 5.1” shot of rain in an evening and that kind of put a damper on crops, and pasture and hay ground.

What has kept us busy has been checking pairs, moving pairs to new and fresh grass quite often and keeping a very close eye on foot rot with being so much water laying around. Other than that, there was a few smaller jobs getting done but July was slow.

The crops are doing well. Take away the drowned out spots and where there are plants, it’s looking quite good!

Come August, we have finally cut a few headlands of a hay field. And hope to be able to keep that trend going.

07/01/2026

What a wet June it was!

June started with an over nighter finishing seeding and then fencing. Cows. More fencing. More fencing. And cows. And spraying in between!

Crops were quite slow to start the month with the cool temperatures and wet conditions. We could really tell when we got the rare day of sun and how much the crop would grow on those days! More so in the end of the month here. Overall we are very happy with the barley. Canola looks promising. Soybeans look great. Corn is slow. And won’t make knee high by the first of July. But I don’t know the last time we did, so we aren’t too worried. And our wheat looked very good until the hail storm a couple nights ago that did a lot of damage.

We sent the early group to pasture on June 8. And also hauled the heifer pairs to their respective summer pasture. While the steers got moved to their pasture a bit later in the month! The early calves look better than last year and that was our goal, as last year we were overly impressed when we sent them to pasture. Progress is key!

We then did a bunch of spraying on days that were raining or windy enough to toss your hat off your head!

Then did the late group on the 20th and we are very happy with the calves again this year! We’d like to thank our help that we got this year. Between mom and dad, we also got additional help from Nic, Terrance, Abby, Deanna and Ben. The extra help definitely helps speed things up and keep the mood light and lots of jokes tossed around!

In the month of June we got a total of 6 inches and 3 tenths. Which in our heavy land, it’s plenty and we have a few drowned out spots and ruts from spraying. In saying that, our thoughts are with those who go more and are dealing with more flooding. We hope everything and everyone is safe and it eases up for everyone’s sakes.

As July comes, if it stops raining some time we will look at starting to cut some hay! And get all the haying equipment ready. While also keep going around fences and rotating pairs through grass! Also will be keeping an eye on crops and tending to them as needed.
We are also looking at the idea of getting someone to brush mow/mulch some fence lines and was curious if anyone knows who does it locally? Be interested in getting some rates!

Hope everyone has a good July and we start to get some warmth with summer!!

06/04/2026

Well, when I miss a month of updates, I don’t realize how much stuff has gone on in a two month span until now!

Where to start, we sorted all of our early group pairs into four pastures prior to breeding time. We did this based on age, colour, frame size. This way we can coordinate what bulls can hopefully optimize each cows best traits! We also split our replacement heifers into 2 groups so we could see how our two new heifer bulls do, we just left them apart for a week, then threw them all back together and took them to pasture to get them on some dry ground! All the early group stayed with bulls for 6 weeks. We also had a bull in the late group to catch any possible cows up into the early group. We dealt with a bit of sickness in April with the early group, and wrestling 2-3 month old calves is not for the faint of heart in the pasture! But most came around when treated!

The late group started calving April 1. They began the calving in the coral as storms were hitting. We had more trouble with the early group with sickness, this prompted us to take them to pasture and on dry ground and it fixed the troubles real quick. Now the cows and calves are thriving! Fun fact, with the early group and late group, we only had one vet visit the whole time for calving! And it was a prolapse that was caught soon enough and the cow and calf are doing well!

For seeding this year, we had a combination of wheat, silage corn, soybeans, canola and barley to go in! With also a quarter of winter triticale to go in at a later date. But spring seeding is complete, and went quite smooth, with only one major breakdown but having spare parts on hand we were going again within an hour or two! Everything went into good moisture this year, and in some fields, plenty of moisture was a battle to seed through!

The last two months have been very busy. But very productive to set us up for the rest of the year. With the addition of a few small bits of rain to help pastures and hay ground. We are very optimistic for the coming year! Like to thank the many hands that helped us, from sorting pairs in ice pellets on the quad to harrowing fields for them to dry out! It all doesn’t go unnoticed!

In the next month, we have pastures to start going around so we can start processing pairs and kicking them to pasture for the summer! Will also be watching the crops grow and tending to them with the sprayer as needed. While also taking advantage of a slower month around here and having a bit of down time to recharge and tackle the rest of summer! We hope everyone had a safe seeding season and to all those still seeding, we hope the ground conditions allow for it to finish in good time!

04/04/2026

Marching into April….

March is supposed to be our “break” from calving….a break that never happened this year. Although calving was slower in March. There was always another new calf that was popping out every couple days to keep us on our toes.

After wrapping up our early group, we sat almost to the exact 50/50 split of heifers to steers.
We started having a few calves in the late group, when we weren’t expecting them, so we were busy hauling the odd pair in from the pasture, into the yard to take better care. This led to us bringing the whole group into the yard so we can monitor, and take better care of the calves. As of right now, the late group is calving in feedlot pens, with us hoping to kick them out to pasture to calve sooner than later once more snow melts.

Other than calving fun, we got 5 yearling bulls this year, like I showed in the last mid March update. We have got them all delivered, and they are settling well with the mature bulls. We like getting them at least 7-14 days prior to bulls going out with cows, so they can work out any differences with other bulls prior to being with the cows.

Ever since we have put more emphasis on getting quality bulls, and more of our top choices instead of our 5th or 6th bull choice, our calf crop has done better and better each year. And this group of bulls is no different. We’re super happy with the ones we got and can’t wait to use them.

We also sorted off our final replacement heifer pen. We will be breeding 82 heifers this year. We think this replacement heifer pen is the best one we’ve had in a long time. Weight range was from 862 (a may 5 born heifer) to 1168 (a January 29 born heifer) pounds. We got them all vet checked and all are ready for breeding!

As April is here, bulls will get turned out, calving will continue, and swearing at how mucky the yard and corrals are will continue. We’ll sort the early group into 3-5 groups so we can select which bulls go with which cows. That will take place next week, with bulls going out on the 13th. Happy calving to all calving, and we can’t wait for warmer weather coming soon!

03/18/2026

Nice pen of blacks here.

Belle Creek Stock Farms - 765 # March Delivery Heifers - 160 Head (Belleview, MB) - TEAM Auction Sales

03/16/2026

Mid March Update.

We got our herd bulls semen tested, and with great results, everything passed except one that needs to be retested in a couple weeks, but the vet is confident he will pass then! This was a big day as breeding is coming up in less than a month!!

We also have purchased five yearling bulls this year. We needed to purchase so many as our last two years, the purchases we made never got to breed for one reason or another, causing this year to be a bigger buy year. In saying that, we are over the moon happy with the bulls we have bought.

Ever since we have put more effort in getting better bulls every year, it has reflected big time in our herd, with that being the calves, and the heifers we have kept within the herd. These 5 bulls were bought for specific reasons on why we think they will better our herd going forward and we can’t wait to see what they can do.

Would like to take the time to thank the owners of the bulls for giving us the opportunity to bid and purchase these bulls:
Horner Cattle Company
Maple Lake Stock Farms
Bar O Farms
More Bros Simmentals

Below are some pictures of our 5 year old bulls (they were most photogenic), as well as pictures of the new bulls we have purchased. Videos of the bulls will be posted in the comments

03/04/2026

As expected, February was calving cows, and more calving cows.

February felt like it flew by, but the long hours of dealing with calves and poor sleep, checking throughout the night will do that I suppose. Overall calving has gone quite well, a few head scratcher situations but that’s cattle for you.

As of right now we are sitting at 48% heifers. Our biggest calving day was 15 in one day. We’ve only had 3 sets of twins. Only 3 crazy cows that weren’t bluffing. Had to help pull 9 calves. No vet trips or C-sections(fingers crossed it stays that way in the late group) And hoards of fun that we’ll plan on doing it all again next year!

There’s only a handful left to calve in the early group, with the last official day being yesterday, March 3, these calves hopefully will come anytime. The trend of smaller birthweight calves continued throughout the whole calving season in that group, except one calf that weighed 135 pounds at birth out of a big cow we call moustache, but this created less assisted births than years prior.

In the feedlot, we sold our two pens of steers at Heartland in Virden at the end of February and they sold great. This leaves us three pens of heifers still. With one of them being a pen of replacement heifers. This is one of our best replacement pens we have had in the last few years. A couple of photos are shown of some of them in this post This has us very excited. We will also be looking at selling some of them as we definitely do not need to keep the full 110 that fill the pen.

As March is upon us, this brings bull sales. We are in the market for a few bulls this year due to a few that have been culled out for different reasons. Other than that, this is our “off” month of calving, so we will be prepping to be ready for our April 1 herd to start while also probably start moving some more hay around while the ground is froze and catch up on a bit of sleep!
Happy March!

Also in the coming week I’ll be posting videos of walking through the pens like I did last year!

02/02/2026

Building a tarp shed and calving cows, because what else does one do in January when it’s -45.

Calving begun on January 9th with a surprise early calf. Even though it was quite premature. It pulled through and is doing well. Our official start date was the 20th. And to date we have around 65 calves on the ground. Our biggest 24 hour day has been 10 calves.

As it sits right now. We are around 55% heifers and 45% steers. Which straightened out as the first 40 calves we were 66% heifers. Other things we’ve noticed has been birthweights are lower this year. Wondering if diet is part of the reasoning, but no complaints here not having to deal with too many big dumb calves that won’t stand. With the extra housing in the tarp shed, we feel we have saved a lot more ears compared to last year, and we have had no casualties due to the extreme cold that we went through.

If we ever ask you to help build a tarp shed in the dead cold of winter, throw a snowball at our face. We are super happy it’s up, usable and functioning, but that made some very long, cold days. Cold fingers and toes during the time consuming jobs. Big thank you to the few that came and helped us put it up. I definitely know that some of our help won’t be coming close to this farm if we get another idea like that in the winter.

We’ve been using our barn, which holds more heat for fresh babies, and ones that are calving. We can monitor them on cameras and have the warmer temperature in there to keep them well and not chilled when they are still wet and damp. Pending how fast the calves come, we kick pairs into the tarp shed. This gives them extra nights inside, outside of the elements, and has proven to give the calves more life and energy compared to being thrown out in the cold sooner. So we are very happy so far with the outcome of the shed.

As February is here, calving is still the main thing going on. And it will be for the foreseeable future. We wish good luck to all that are calving as well, and wish you all be safe and good health.