Leaky Eyed Chuck 🫣

Sometimes, You Have to Work Cattle — Even at -7º

Lorraine Penner and Jeffrey Penner

Mar 03, 2025

Good morning from the farm!

Today, we wanted to share with you some of the hard parts of being a farmer with livestock in winter.

Spoiler alert: it goes from bad to worse!

Some Backstory

A few weeks ago, we traveled to Lanomi, IA to pick up a couple of yearling steer calves.

Everything went well, we had no issues with the steers or with the traveling!

But over the last 5 years of raising livestock, we’ve come to realize that anytime an animal is stressed out for any reason, it’s a high likelihood that they may catch something.

And being pulled from the herd you grew up with (in addition to being weaned from your momma!) has some reasonable stress along with it.

About a week after we brought Chuck and Stewie home… we noticed that Chuck had a gooey eye that was starting to leak.

So we called our trusted vet who advised it was likely an infection and recommended we give the calf a shot of antibiotics to avoid it turning into pinkeye (which we wanted to avoid at all costs - especially because of how cold it has been getting, and how contagious that would be to the herd).

So what do we do when the feels like temperature is -7° and all we want is for chores to be quick so we can get back inside?

We work cattle!

Yup! So after work as the sun was going down as the light was quickly fading and the temperatures were frigid, we wrangled the cattle.

We bribed our 6 calves a few minutes before working them to butter ‘em up.

The Process

First, we had to move all of the big momma cows into a pen so that we could move the calves more easily.

Mommas: Bluebelle (left) and Mabel (right)

Once all 3 momma cows were locked up, we released all 6 - 400lb baby calves into the big pen and herded them into the holding area where our cattle working chute is located.

Surprisingly the cows and calves all cooperated extremely well!

We got Chuck into the chute and discovered the head gate was frozen and would not budge. So, we decided to just open a side panel and give him his shot of antibiotics the old fashioned way - it worked!

By this time is was already getting dark so Lorraine was holding the flashlight so I could see what I was doing.

I’m sure Chuck appreciated that 😂💉🐮

We decided while we had the boys in the chute we may as well give them their new ear tags so we would not have to do it all again another time.

With freezing cold hands, we depended on that flashlight to see the veins in the ears so we could be careful to miss them.

Praise the Lord, we got them both done successfully!

We moved all the calves back to their pen easily and let the mommas back out to fed them their hay in the dark.

Gratefully, we couldn't have expected it all to go any better.

(Well, maybe Stewie could have gone into the chute forwards instead of backwards but we still got his ear tag in and let him do it the way he wanted)

A Fine Farewell to a Long Day

You wouldn’t believe how bone tired we were after working the calves, THEN completing all the rest of chores in the dark, at below zero weather.

…but like I said, it got worse 😬

We topped the night off by having to double back after chores to push our Kawasaki Mule back home again after it died on us between our house and my parents house.

The culprit is on the left. Val was just an innocent bystander.

Literally, we would have rather done ANYTHING else.

But after pushing the ATV about 1/4 mile back into the garage, it’s safe to say we were exhausted but no longer cold!

Here’s a throwback to what chores look like in extreme cold.

Winter Farm Lesson Learned

Farming in winter is no joke, and nights like this remind us just how much grit it takes to care for livestock — especially when the temperatures are brutal, the equipment won’t cooperate, and the unexpected always finds a way to happen.

But despite the cold, the exhaustion, and the frustration of pushing a dead Mule through the snow, there’s still something rewarding about knowing the animals are safe, healthy, and cared for.

At the end of the day, that’s what makes it all worth it.

Stay warm out there, friends.

P.S. Chuck is doing well and his eye is all cleared up now.