The Final Calf

 

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Finally, the last of the calves has been born!  Kerry was looking pretty ready the last few days, and then Thursday morning when Caleb moved the herd, she had a brand-new little wobbler with her.  And I mean little, he can stand entirely under her to nurse, I bet he's loving that in this rainy weather!  It's a boy, giving us two of each for the year.  Liam named him Moses (he also suggested Grassy, Pinetree and Civil War, but I was happy with Moses).  We've finally gotten the other calves named, so this summer we continued the flower theme - Yarrow (who vanished), Darcy's grey girl is Aster, and Myra's white heifer is (Queen) Anne('s Lace).  We also named one Poppy - and then remembered it's a boy :), so we transferred that name to Kerry's red heifer from last year that was still nameless.  Myra's white heifer last year we did name, Clover, so that fits nicely also.  We're going to have a confusing lot of white cows in a few years - Myra and Fern are already almost identical, Corinne will be fully grown next summer and should calve then, and then Myra's two from 2014 and 2015 will bring us to 5!  Myra's mother Thistle made 4 white calves out of 5, and Myra is now 2 out of 3, so I think this trend may continue - Fern is Thistle's daughter as well, so she probably has the same likelihood to keep making white girls that her sister does.  

We sat down the other evening with our database of the cows, and are pleased with their reproduction charts.  We're getting basically 2 steers and 2 heifers each year, so we'll be adding 2 mothers each of the next 3 years, and have 2 to butcher each year as well.  In a few years, it'll jump to 3 and then 5 of each, and so on, if all goes well.  Unless something happens, we shouldn't be losing any existing mothers, either - no one is older than probably 7 or 8, so they should have a number of good years left in them.  

We're hoping to get some weaned feeder calves next year - often the local dairies have extra bull-calves - to increase our meat production, and also would like to get a couple of heifers as well, hopefully in the next month or two.  Non-Highland heifers would still make 1/2 Highland calves, and with hybrid vigor, they'd probably grow faster than the purebred.  Any of those daughters, bred with a Highland bull, would give 3/4 Highland calves, which are generally indistinguishable from the full-blooded ones.  In fact, Kerry (that just calved) is half-Angus herself, and her calves look identical to the rest except that every other one is polled like her - a trait from the Angus side.  They do seem to grow a bit faster as well.  Also in favor of cross-bred cows, Kerry is our only cow that's never lost a calf - although I probably shouldn't tempt fate by saying something like that with her having a new one!  

All in all, while we certainly have room to improve some aspects of our cattle management, they seem to be doing pretty well.  I think we're getting better at knowing what to do in different situations, what is normal/acceptable and what is problematic, identifying subtle indicators of issues, and just getting more knowledgable and experienced in general.  Hopefully that continues!

Comments

new calves

Sweet photo of the newest calf.

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