Just Bought Our First Cattle!

Organic Cowgirl · #1 11/05/08, 01:31 PM

We bought the 6 longhorn cows and calves (one heifer, one bull) that had been on pasture lease here. They're gentle, but not tame. They're all exposed to the bull that was also here for a while, so we may be getting some calves over the winter.

They're an interim purchase, to maintain the ag exemption here while we get things set up as we want for the long term. We, may, however, stick with raising a few of these calves each year for meat, roping and weanling grower sales. Unreg. longhorns don't sell for tons of money, but around here, they do sell quickly and consistently.

I may bring up the heifer calf to tame her down and try my hand at milking her later. NOT a milk cow, I know....but here and easy access.

francismilker · #2 11/05/08, 02:33 PM

Congrats on your newly aquired herd. By the way, you might be surprised at the amount of house milk you can get from that longhorn cow someday. If you the calf and her run together she'll adjust her milk production to what the calf needs. If you cycle them apart you might be able to "trick" her into a little more. I'm not saying you'll be selling milk to the neighbors or anything, but I'd be willing to bet she'll keep your family in drinking milk if you're light to moderate fluid milk users plus raise a calf. Congrats

Organic Cowgirl · #3 11/06/08, 07:56 AM

Thanks! We're really excited to get one more thing in order around here. I think we'll cycle her, like you mention, as we had planned to do with a milk goat or Dexter...but she's thrown in my lap, so I figure I'll give her a 'go.' The Dexters around here are $$$$ and I'm not particularly fond of goat milk.

We use just over a gallon of milk per week, right now. We could use more, but try to keep it down, as we pay $8/gallon for raw milk and only get it every 6 weeks or so, as it's about 1.5 hours away. We freeze gallons and take them out one at a time. It's a pain and it's always a little lumpy after the freezing, but it's that or pasteurized. Ick...no thanks.

Honestly, about the lowest production cow out there could probably meet our needs.