My heifer

[momagoat61]

This is a picture of my heifer that I traded my blind cow Sally's steer calf for last year. This is Molly,named due to her mollie face. Molly's mother currently has a calve this year that looks just like my Molly and would be Molly's full sister. My Molly's grandmother was sold last year, she had been here on the farm for years and was getting to old to keep over last fall so my brothers sold her, along with several other older cows. My two brother's took over the cattle when dad's health got to bad for him to farm, I help out when ever I'm needed as we all live here on the family farm.. With the current weather conditions which are dry as a bone I keep Molly up away from the bulls, don't want her breed at least unitl end of Aug or Sept maybe.. Molly's mother is a nice cow but she isn't a big bodied cow. I picked Molly out of about 15 heifer calves that was born here on the farm last year. Molly was born May 2011. We currently have about 55 cows and 3 bulls, about 10 cows are still left that haven't calved yet. The youngest bull is about 14months and is registered out of the Iron Mountain Bloodline that my brothers purchased a couple months ago. Then there is BlackJack my dad purchased him last Feburary and he is also registered but i can't recall his bloodlines. We have blackJacks calves on the ground this year and then there's Big Bully which is Molly's dad. I'll be breeding Molly to BlackJack, his calves are nice calves but are born med weight calves unlike Big Bully he can throw big calves and I don't want that for sure.. Here is my Molly, due to the draught she is currenly dry lotted and fed twice daily a grain mix and has a large bale of hay in front of her 24/7. In the picture she looks a little thin but I don't for sure wont her fat. She's currently getting a gal can full of 12% beef cattle feed and she's fed twice aday. I might up the feed just a bit in the near future. My blind cow Sally had another bull calve this year and I'm kinda thinging about trading it for Molly's full sister this year, but boy it sure is a lot of working and time raising a heifer up to bredding age. What do ya'll think of my Molly Girl?

[WJMartin]

I think Molly looks like a sweet girl.
It is alot of work and time to raise a calf if you have to dry lot it, are you starting your own small herd? How does your blind cow get around? Sounds like you have your hands full.

[wvdexters]

I thing Molly is a very pretty heifer and I like the name too; it fits her. I agree. It is a lot of time and work to get them up to breeding age but it is worth it. She will make a nice cow for you.
I have 2 heifers that are 2yrs old I am breeding now. My third is still young and won't be bred until fall or maybe even next spring. I can't wait to get our calves. We are haying here too. I think alot of people are.

[agmantoo]

Personally as time to have her bred approaches I would want her to put on a little weight. It will not be long until we head into cooler/colder weather and I would want her in body condition score of 5+ when the weather gets cold. A heifer needs to be in good condition when feeding a calf or she will give up body condition to support the calf and it takes a long time to get her back into condition so that she will rebreed.

[arnie]

Good luck ; hoppe you's get some rain good green grass pasture sure makes it easyer on the feed bill our bull looks like mollie though much heavyer being of mixed ansestry he is all beef our herd is colorful but all the calfs are blocky built and of a gentle nature 'which is why he has'nt been replaced with a regersterd bull .it sure is easyer to herd up the cows by shaking a feed bucket than being a cowboy having a "pet" cow in a large herd like yours helps moving them letting her lead the rest