I was able to get a few more pictures of the new calf on the 28th when it was just over a day old.
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More Calf Pictures
Month: December 2019
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First Calf!
On December 27th, Luna, our first heifer, calved and we now have a new addition. Unfortunately, she’s in a large paddock and somewhat wild, so we don’t know if it’s a bull or heifer yet.
We’ll have to give them a few days alone and then put them in with the rest of the herd so Luna doesn’t gore anybody.
It’s doing well so far and she’s a great mother. Unfortunately, she is a little wild and we’ll likely sell her after the calf is weaned as we focus on polled, gentle, easy to manage cattle for our farm.
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Round Bales in the Barn
We recently switched to using round bales for the cows – much cheaper and easier to manage. Premium Quality Hay and Feed delivered 16 bales. Each bale is 700-750lbs.
Right now we’re putting out 2 bales each week, with 7 head.
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Gathering at the scratching post
I built a scratching playground for the cows to rub on. It gets a lot of use so I have to fill the area around it with hog fuel to prevent mud accumulation.
We’ve been looking for a good used head gate / squeeze chute to help with basic cattle handling tasks without a lot of luck. We needed to take some DNA samples of 3 calves to help with the registration process with the ADCA. This process requires that 30-50 pieces of hair with roots/flesh attached at the base be taken from each calf and send to the farm we bought the cows from so they could get them registered and transferred to us.
While looking around on craigslist yesterday, I noticed that a neighbor had a mobile cattle handling business – Colson Cattle Company. I went over for a visit today and this afternoon they came over and helped us get all of our DNA sampling from the 3 calves done.
It wasn’t even a minor adventure, no injuries or broken equipment — always a good thing. I don’t think the calves are too worse for wear.
Colson Cattle Company has state of the art mobile equipment from Arrowquip that made the process much easier than it could have been without it. If you’re local and need handling help, call them!
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Rolling in the hay
We started feeding round bales to the herd last week and they appreciate it. We unroll the bales (as well as we can) with the tractor and the cows do the rest.
Time to get a round bale un-roller for the tractor.
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Look at those calves!
I caught them resting in a circle of hay. Great photo.
We had Mike Erickson’s Mobile Slaughter come out yesterday and slaughter Rusty, our first bull. The slaughter process was very fast and efficient. I honestly can’t see how those businesses make money, with all the travel and equipment maintenance they have.
We got a call from Salmon Creek Meats last night saying he weighed in at 632 lbs, hanging weight! That’s great for a grass-fed Dexter bull. The carcass had lots of fat on it, really good looking. I kept all the scraps for compost, dog food, and kept the head/horns and will clean that up as well as I can.
The slaughter company typically keeps the head, hide, and possibly other parts. If you want to keep any of that, be sure to discuss it before, or at the time of slaughter. It will save you from a misunderstanding. I kept the head/skull from this bull because it was my only horned bull that I will probably ever have and I want to dry and hang it.