New herd addition! :)

SpaceCadet12364 · #21 05/31/12, 07:48 PM

American Highland Cattle Association

Officially recognized by AHCA are 7 colors:

Red (Light to Dark)
Dun (kind of a catch all, can be greyish through the darker browns)
Brindle (red with black streaks, black with red streaks, or yellow with dun streaks)
Silver (white hair with black skin beneath)
White (white hair with pinkish skin beneath)
Black
Yellow

Sometimes one of the most frustrating things is when you go to register an animal, and you think it is going to be one color.....and then it shifts. Black calves, who usually start out looking really chocolaty in color, will start shifting to the black around 12 months or so. They will look positively parti-colored for a while. Thats why AHCA allows you to adjust the color on registrations up till they hit 2 years old?

lakeportfarms · #22 06/01/12, 05:37 AM

SpaceCadet, how do your Highlands handle the heat and humidity of KY? There are days even here in Michigan I'm looking at ours thinking they're about to keel over when it gets to 85 degrees. The other day we had a record high and even though they had shade, a couple of ours were foaming at the mouth and panting. We had to abandon our rotational grazing for the day and open up the pond where they promptly waded in up to their nostrils.

I'm wondering if those that are further South just don't develop as much hair during the winter months making the transition to summer more easily, or do they develop the same amount of hair and are warmer during the winter so the range isn't as great.

lakeportfarms · #23 06/01/12, 05:39 AM

I might add it's 47 degrees and raining right now, so they're happy.

SpaceCadet12364 · #24 06/04/12, 07:57 AM

Ours love to hang out in the pond when it gets hot, or even not so hot. The pond is kind of icky at the moment....its a bit lower than usual, had a blowout in the backside of it, so its about a foot shallower than it used to be. And, on the backside of the pond above the water, there are a couple three trees (willow?) that overhang the water, so that is a popular spot to hang out. We also have a barn where they can get in on one side (doubles as our loading chute...kind of wide, but it works alright). And there is a 3 sided loafing shed that is out in the pasture area. Between all those, and the shady areas that the barn & shed provide, they do pretty well. One end of the pasture, in the afternoon, gets good and shady by the trees just on the other side of the fence.

Yeah, its been nicely cool here of late. Be nice if it stays like this all summer, wouldnt hurt my feelings any.....LOL. But, being Kentucky, I know that moderate weather such as this is not likely to stay this way.

A girl can always hope though.....

zephyrcreek · #25 06/04/12, 01:36 PM

I want!!!

But, need to wait atleast another year before I add cattle. sigh

Way too cute!!!

SpaceCadet12364 · #26 06/28/12, 08:41 AM

A month old, and he just thinks he's one of the big cows now....