Post by DostThouHaveMilk on Aug 16, 2007 13:47:36 GMT -5
It has been an interesting summer. A little over a month ago on a Saturday evening, I went out to the knob to collect the milking herd. My dork light lit up a black baldy's face. I managed to make it okay in my head and then a split second later realized that no...that isn't normal. The school had similar looking beef cross heifers so I had become accustomed to the look in a herd of Jerseys.
She had escaped while she was being loaded at the local sale barn earlier that afternoon. We are the first farm East of the Sale Barn and we have cattle and goats, so we end up with a number of strays (nightmare when you think of bio security). WE have not been able to convince her to go into the pole barn and let us catch her. She is a crazy beef calf after all. The owner is anxious for us to catch her and we will soon.
On top of that, on the 4th (a Saturday), what appears to be an Angus bull showed up in the herd. Unfortunately, he did not escape from the sale barn and does not belong to any of the neighbors. So we have an Angus beef bull running with our herd.
The heifer behind him is Twyla. A 2 year old, 7/8 Jersey, 1/8 NR heifer who lost her pregnancy earlier this year.
Both strays. The heifer has decided she likes him. He doesn't beat on her like our group does.
Now, dad had plans of bringing in an Angus bull this Fall...after we had run our Jersey bull and after I had a chance to breed what I could. It was going to be run with the heifer herd and the open dry cows....not with the entire herd like he is running.
He bred Priscilla on her first visible heat since calving in May (one of the two cows purchased from the school that both had bull calves.....so the likelihood of her delivering a Jersey heifer calf for me at age 10 next year is slim....I did AI her Jersey though). He's also breeding all of our heifers. We are going to have to abort our three yearlings unfortunately. It is not something we do lightly, but they are young and we won't have any replacement animals otherwise.
The only animals this bull hasn't had a chance at are the 6-8 months old and our Jersey bull. All the other 41 animals have been exposed. A number of them bred (8 came into heat on the 4th!!!!).
So a mixed blessing of sorts. We don't have to buy a bull. I have an outlet for Angus cross calves next Spring (keep that in mind, y'all!).
Dad has put up Found ads and put one in the local paper. If an owner doesn't come forward within the next two-three weeks we'll just ship him to the sale barn.
We've gotta get the milking herd separated out. We are gonna try to put three Jerseys heifers in with our Jersey bull (they've been AIed in the past two months already).......
*sigh*
She had escaped while she was being loaded at the local sale barn earlier that afternoon. We are the first farm East of the Sale Barn and we have cattle and goats, so we end up with a number of strays (nightmare when you think of bio security). WE have not been able to convince her to go into the pole barn and let us catch her. She is a crazy beef calf after all. The owner is anxious for us to catch her and we will soon.
On top of that, on the 4th (a Saturday), what appears to be an Angus bull showed up in the herd. Unfortunately, he did not escape from the sale barn and does not belong to any of the neighbors. So we have an Angus beef bull running with our herd.
The heifer behind him is Twyla. A 2 year old, 7/8 Jersey, 1/8 NR heifer who lost her pregnancy earlier this year.
Both strays. The heifer has decided she likes him. He doesn't beat on her like our group does.
Now, dad had plans of bringing in an Angus bull this Fall...after we had run our Jersey bull and after I had a chance to breed what I could. It was going to be run with the heifer herd and the open dry cows....not with the entire herd like he is running.
He bred Priscilla on her first visible heat since calving in May (one of the two cows purchased from the school that both had bull calves.....so the likelihood of her delivering a Jersey heifer calf for me at age 10 next year is slim....I did AI her Jersey though). He's also breeding all of our heifers. We are going to have to abort our three yearlings unfortunately. It is not something we do lightly, but they are young and we won't have any replacement animals otherwise.
The only animals this bull hasn't had a chance at are the 6-8 months old and our Jersey bull. All the other 41 animals have been exposed. A number of them bred (8 came into heat on the 4th!!!!).
So a mixed blessing of sorts. We don't have to buy a bull. I have an outlet for Angus cross calves next Spring (keep that in mind, y'all!).
Dad has put up Found ads and put one in the local paper. If an owner doesn't come forward within the next two-three weeks we'll just ship him to the sale barn.
We've gotta get the milking herd separated out. We are gonna try to put three Jerseys heifers in with our Jersey bull (they've been AIed in the past two months already).......
*sigh*