The Castle Rock MARE-TERNITY WARD
Message Boards => General Discussion => Topic started by: Chanda on March 16, 2017, 03:22:38 PM
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Only a couple pictures, as we only have one calf, first live calf came yesterday out of a first time heifer. I think Shayne said it's a bull calf.
[We did have a late slough, and a breach that never took a breath.]
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Very cute Chanda. How many are you expecting this year ?
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THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! I just LOVE these calves!!!!
What a little cutie!!!!!
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Very cute Chanda. How many are you expecting this year ?
Lots.
More than a dozen less than 300.
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This afternoon a cow calved, so we have two calves now.
Another picture of the heifers calf.
And, a picture of the cow and her calf
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Awwwwww! How precious!!
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Love!!
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I like those babies, too!
and OMG, I wish we could get some of that hay down here for the ponies! Since our October hurricane, our hay has been horrid (tans & browns, though I haven't really had any mold or even dust). I did get about 15 round bales with foxtail in it and spent the end of January and most of February dealing with the fall out on that. Sierra sent some pictures of round bales that had obviously been out, stacked all winter in the fields in Mt & the Dakotas and it was greener than most of what's available here right ow (some still have green hay, but not many - and hay that was barn stored and got damp HAS molded - it's being pulled out of barns by the wagon/trailer load on many farms around us.
Our area didn't get much moisture in precip but we've spent from Oct thru now very "dewey" &/or humid - so baled and bagged products have been difficult to store, while the ground is so dry it's very worrisome already for this time of year.
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Had to do some reverse cow-tipping tonight. Had a cow turtled in the corral, so had to get the tractor and upright her. She may be a bit bloated, or just full of calf and got too far over to upright herself; cause as soon as Shayne pushed her past center with the tractor she got right up, she might be a little stiff and sore, but otherwise seems fine.
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Reverse cow-tipping! That made me smile! Sounds like another little beauty will be coming soon!!! Thanks for the smiles!!
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"Just for YOU, Diane...." HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!
I couldn't click on this one fast enough! Even though I'm not a rancher, I still appreciate what it takes for you to raise the cattle that feed us, and am grateful to both you and the animals.
In the first heifer pics, I started to comment that you might have left snow season and entered mud season. Then I saw the slushy snow mound in the cow/calf picture and felt sad for you.
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We aren't usually this warm this early, but we are currently just mud and slop, very little snow left.
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"Just for YOU, Diane...." HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!
I couldn't click on this one fast enough! Even though I'm not a rancher, I still appreciate what it takes for you to raise the cattle that feed us, and am grateful to both you and the animals.
Yes, Chanda is kind enough to do this for me every year. I grew up on a farm in New York raising Arabian horses and Black Angus cattle. And I so miss those little calves with those precious faces and eyes! So, this is how I get my fix!!
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Just out of curiousity Diane, what brought you from Arabians (my biggies breed too) over to miniatures, and Falabella/Appaloosa in particular?
I love seeing Chanda's babies every year too. Maybe in a big setup, I wouldn't get so attached and could process them (or send them off to become convenient white packages that I can put directly into the freezer.) In a setup like mine, there's NO chance I could process them.
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We don't baby the butcher steers, they go out to pasture with the replacement heifers, so don't really get attached. And, once you've been run over or knocked down by one, it's much easier to send them off.
We send them out, we don't do it ourselves.
I've read on a couple forums about friends that each raise a butcher steer, then swap at processing time, so they aren't eating their "friend".
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On our farm as a child, we "ate our pets" ! That's what several of my friends have said about me, when they call me a "farmer" when I make the hard decisions concerning life and death sometimes. I remember playing as kids in the pasture with the little ones, eating lunch between the legs of our cows, playing with the calves, leading them around etc.
My father "cured" our attachment to them by making the declaration that all babies have "food names". So we had little "rump roast", "sirloin", "chuck", "hamburg" etc. We just knew that ultimately they'd wind up in the freezer of family -- ours or my aunt's (We had 2 families living on the same 100 acre farm -- so had quite fun growing up close with cousins). And back then, as I'm sure you know, you didn't argue or complain with parents. They ruled, and you obeyed.
And we didn't process the meat ourselves, one day we'd come home and a steer was missing, and we knew what that meant.
I went from Arabians (as a child/young adult) to Peruvian Paso's actually. I raised them before the miniatures. And getting into miniatures was because I had a bad accident and broke up my hand requiring surgery and plates and pins and a bad concussion after a serious riding accident (not with my horses, but with a friend's horses on a group ride). My kids decided I didn't heal quite as fast "at my age" and insisted I get rid of the horses. To keep the peace, I did that......but not quite. I decided to be a little tricky and instead get into miniatures. They couldn't say I would get hurt because of how big they were, and so my life with miniatures began. I became fascinated with the Falabella Breed in the first few years of miniatures, after studying them and Chianti being imported to the US with Menelek going to England. I found it all very interesting.
I've always loved appaloosas -- just never had one as a riding horse. When I got into miniatures, my cousin who grew up on the farm with me said why wasn't I raising appaloosas now? She knew my fascination with spots, and so an appaloosa breeder was born. Then, after a bunch of research, and finding how few pure Falabellas there were in the world, and their story, I had a farm of American appaloosas and Falabellas and loved them both.
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Yes, our butcher steers, if named, have food names. Chocolate (white charlois steer), Sprite, T-Bone, I think we even named one Chicken.
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"I've read on a couple forums about friends that each raise a butcher steer, then swap at processing time, so they aren't eating their "friend". "
What a nifty idea! I know someone I might do that with. Or even a couple of someones.
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"I've read on a couple forums about friends that each raise a butcher steer, then swap at processing time, so they aren't eating their "friend". "
What a nifty idea! I know someone I might do that with. Or even a couple of someones.
Would probably need to be a trustworthy friend, so that you both raise the same quality steer.
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I have a bottle calf... set of twins this morning, second has noodle legs, so not steady enough to stand and nurse a cow, and cow only accepted first.
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Awwww....
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He's a bit stronger this morning, but still noodley. Loves his bottle. Being a twin he's fairly small, so gets three small meals a day.
I'll feed 1ish before I leave for town, and again before I go to bed tonight.
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Can you post a picture? Is he outside or in the house? I remember having 4 baby goats living in a playpen in my kitchen for weeks being bottle fed! Glad he's doing a bit better.
Sorry I was away most of the day yesterday, and read some threads on my phone, but too hard to reply there.
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He's in a stall at the barn.
This morning we have a calf in the tub warming up, cow picked a big wet mud hole to drop him in. If it turns out, I took a picture of Tink watching him in the tub. Missed her dipping her paw in the dirty water and licking it off. She prefers to drink from the tub, than the cat water dish.
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Chanda, do you find that the current trend to "Black Angus....the BEST in the world!!" has negatively affected your operation? With beef prices in the market (store) being what they are, would it be about the same cost for someone to raise their own steer and have it processed for home consumption? Most particularly, I'm interested in if it would be equivalent to purchasing products that are labeled organic. If it's about the same, surely a dork like me could figure out that my new steer ("Carne Asada" for example) is for the table. I can be pragmatic when I need to be. ::)
Also, do you know anyone who has experience with miniature cattle breeds? Or with the International Miniature Cattle Breeders Society and Registry? Since my place is, and I plan to always keep it, small I'd like to keep everything in scale. I'd like to show my community the benefits of local, sustainable and homegrown.
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Chanda, do you find that the current trend to "Black Angus....the BEST in the world!!" has negatively affected your operation? With beef prices in the market (store) being what they are, would it be about the same cost for someone to raise their own steer and have it processed for home consumption? Most particularly, I'm interested in if it would be equivalent to purchasing products that are labeled organic. If it's about the same, surely a dork like me could figure out that my new steer ("Carne Asada" for example) is for the table. I can be pragmatic when I need to be. ::)
Also, do you know anyone who has experience with miniature cattle breeds? Or with the International Miniature Cattle Breeders Society and Registry? Since my place is, and I plan to always keep it, small I'd like to keep everything in scale. I'd like to show my community the benefits of local, sustainable and homegrown.
Locally, Black Angus have always been preferred at the sale yard, so we haul our calves to a sale yard a bit further away and get better sale prices even with shipping costs figured. We still raise Angus cattle, they are just Red, but for some reason buyers around here think the color of the hide influences what's on the inside. You can't fix stupid or stubborn.
I know little of Miniature breeds, other than what I've read in the American Livestock magazine (caters to the more exotic: miniature cattle, llamas, alpacas, zebu, Watusi, etc and include miniature hroses and donkeys)
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Ok, so as promised here are a couple tub pics. Now I get to clean the tub, corral muck is pretty gross in the tub.
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OMG how cute!!!
Will momma take him back do you think? Or will he now become the buddy to your bottle fed baby?
Yes, stupid, unfortunately, can't be fixed!
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OMG how cute!!!
Will momma take him back do you think? Or will he now become the buddy to your bottle fed baby?
Yes, stupid, unfortunately, can't be fixed!
Yes, she'll take him back, might take a day or two in the barn of him nursing and getting her milk through his system for her to recognize him fully.
And, I have another twin to buddy with the bottle bum. That's 4 sets of twins this year already, not the usual for us; lost one from the first set, Noodle is from the second, third set is on a new cow, and now the fourth is on a bottle. We rarely leave twins on the cow as they don't seem to keep track of two very well and it works better for our pasture system.
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4 sets! WOW! In all our years of breeding we only got 1 set. Congratulations....except for the extra work for you!
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4 sets! WOW! In all our years of breeding we only got 1 set. Congratulations....except for the extra work for you!
Usually, only get one, maybe two, sets in a year, but we've had a couple years with multiple sets.
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And, once you've been run over or knocked down by one, it's much easier to send them off. OMG - Too FUNNY and O, so true!!!
We send them out, we don't do it ourselves.
I've read on a couple forums about friends that each raise a butcher steer, then swap at processing time, so they aren't eating their "friend". O, now that works, too.
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Two bottle bums to feed for now. Noodle and a second single from a set of twins. Noodle is getting his legs, we ran the barn aisle a couple times today for exercise. 3 meals daily still as they are so little, and can't handle more than a quart at a time.
Calving is going pretty well, and the calves are coming quickly like 10 or so every day; I'm sure it'll eventually slow down, but if this rate keeps up we could be done calving before Tax Day, we usually don't finish up til early May as there are always some that hang onto their calves for what seems like forever. Just glad the weather is mild, as some of the calves have been slow to get moving, so if it were cold they might not survive.
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Hope the weather continues to stay good for you Chanda :)
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Hope the weather continues to stay good for you Chanda :)
Thank you. We hope so too. Although, it messes with the growing season cycle when it's this warm in March.
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OMG! Two more sets of twins; well we know one is twins for certain, educated guess for the calf no one is claiming. We don't usually have this many sets of twins in a year, let alone in 10 days. The one set that the cow is claiming, she'll be taking care of her calves at least long enough to get colostrum in both. but, I'll still have 3 singles to feed tonight.
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Oh my goodness!! This must be a record!!
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Oh my goodness!! This must be a record!!
Pretty sure it is a record for us. They can stop having twins any time now; I'm out of bottles and will soon be out of milk replacer.
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Depending on how you look it, fortunately or unfortunately; 3 of my bottle bums are now on cows, so I'm only feeding one calf at this time. Much easier on me. Those put on cows are doing well, they've taken to the cow like a duck to water and the cows seem to at the very least be letting the calves nurse, but not all are motherly towards their grafted calf.