Beef Farming Happenings


 This little fellow wouldn't cooperate with me for a good photo, but he is the first of our calves to go to a new home.  Gary registered all of our pure bred Angus calves.  This one is going to a place near Elkland, MO to a guy who is raising him to breed his little herd of Angus.  

We have two Angus/Holstein cross calves; both heifers I think...one might be a bull, I am not sure.  We are not sure what we are going to do with them, but they will be privately sold.  As in; we will not take them to the sale barn.  Gary listed the calves as for sale on Craig's List yesterday morning and got a call just an hour or two later.  There is also a different guy who was interested in buying all of the registered bulls as he raises and sells them himself.  But he wasn't going to come look about them until the end of the week. 

I'm kind of glad the guy got this first bull yesterday.  I like to know they are going straight to their new permanent home from here.  I've not let myself get too attached to the calves because I knew they were going to have to leave eventually, but I am glad they aren't going to the sale barn.  

Gary is going to sell the registered heifer calves as well.  I don't think we really want to grow our herd any larger.  Plus, if you keep the heifers, you really ought to get different bulls so you aren't inbreeding.  Some people do that.  Or they play musical fields and trade bulls around from spot to spot.  But we aren't set up to do that.  

After two years of having this little herd of Angus beef, this is the first actual income from them.  Farming is certainly not a get rich quick operation; that's for sure. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Oyster

It isn't even halfway through the month yet and I have run out of lists or anything amusing to tell you about the dairy. So here is a poem I picked up on a homesteading forum. It does deal with ag issues, just of a different sort... Enjoy! The Oyster Baxter Black The sign upon the café wall said OYSTERS: fifty cents. "How quaint," the blue-eyed sweetheart said with some bewildermence, "I didn't know they served such fare out here upon the plain." "Oh, sure," her cowboy date replied, "We're really quite urbane." "I would guess they're Chesapeake or Blue Point, don't you think?" "No ma'am, they're mostly Hereford cross . . . and usually they're pink But I've been cold, so cold myself, what you say could be true And if a man looked close enough, their points could sure be blue!" She said, "I gather them myself out on the bay alone. I pluck them from the murky depths and smash them with a
Read more

Like Cats A'Fightin'

Image
That's a local saying when it's snowing hard. Snowing like cats a'fightin'. You can look out and see the fur flying. Ellen had never been outside while it was actually snowing. She was enchanted. She had to have a bucket of it to carry around. It was in the mid-20s but we took a bit of a walk before coming back in for a nap. The snow is still too dry to be able to make a snowman, it is really powdery. So far we have somewhere between 3 and 4 inches, I would suspect.
Read more

The Blind Calf Story

Image
This happened last month. I thought it was an interesting case. Wed Aug 15th 2007 8:30 AM: Went out and brought new heifer calf and cow in from field. Not too sure how old calf was; umbilical cord sort of dried up, but calf still seemed damp. Left her with cow all morning ‘til maybe early afternoon, then separated them. Beautiful, normal calf. 6 PM Fed calf bottle. She slugged back the whole thing. Thurs Aug 16th5:15 AM (approx) Calf comatose. Or as near as I could tell. She was on her side, non-responsive, drooling, head on ground, eyes closed or just barely opened. I tried to feed her bottle but she only swallowed convulsively once or twice, then milk just drained from her mouth. 5:30 AM. Husband went out and looked at her. Drug her out of pen and out of the way to be taken to boneyard later after chores were all done. She was barely breathing and as I said, totally non-responsive.This was a real grief as the cow she came from is a great milker and to get a heifer from her was a joy.
Read more