Here is one we had born a couple of weeks ago. (I wanted to take his coat off, but it is pretty cold this morning.) As any of you who visit here regularly know, for the past three years or so we have kept a milking shorthorn bull to breed heifers. It has worked out quite well, but the boss has taken a good deal of flack from folks who are puzzled by our choice. It is not common in this area, although many people keep Jersey bulls and black Angus bulls for their dairy heifers. We have done so in the past, but wanted to get away from those breeds because of temperament issues (here in the east Angus tend to be mean as stirred up snakes) and the low value of half-Jersey calves.
Then I saw the our bull on the internet. I fell right in love with him. He was a beautiful mahogany color with little white snowflake-like spots all over him as a baby. It took nearly a year, but we got him bought and brought him home.
We just sold him a couple of weeks ago and actually got more than we paid for him. Now we just have to go up to Vernon and pick up the semen from him, then we can AI the pen of heifers we are breeding now. The calf in the picture was a terrific surprise though. Most of the crossbreds have been black or mostly black, with only two other red ones in all the time we had him. We had no idea that Licorice, his mother, was a red carrier, but it is kind of neat. We are keeping him and he will be raised for beef for our freezer.
Anyhow, I have mentioned the shorthorn cross thing in the Farm Side a time or two over the years....and, just the other day, the boss was driving by a farm in the area covered by the paper where they run beef bulls with the dairy cows (don't ask) and there, in place of the usual gigantic Hereford, was a milking shorthorn bull. Hmmmmm
We just had a crossbred heifer born this morning and she was up and walking around the barn when we got in at 5:30. Surprising since the boss checked at 11:30 last night and nothing was happening. The new one is plain black though. Guess Pop Tart probably doesn't carry the gene for red.
My bull is cute isn't he? And energetic and spunky and crazy. But I love little Jose.
ReplyDeleteHe is mighty cute.
ReplyDeleteRed is my favorite color of cattle! Too bad this one is a bull, the boss might be persuaded to keep a red heifer right?
ReplyDeletePaints, he is pretty cute
ReplyDeleteMrs. M, I concur, I just love the red ones
Joni, most likely...we kept the other one and she is breeding age now.
I tried cute little coats made out of sleeves and legs of sweats on my goats, but I've got a few nasty does who realized that they could swing other does kids around like a rag by grabbing on to the coat with their mouth. I'll stick with the kid warming barrels.
ReplyDeleteAs for those Amish moving into your area, don't give them an inch...they'll take a mile. Establish that you won't take any BS right from the get-go. The majority of the ones in our area know how to milk the system and people's sympathies coming off as the 'poor Amish' but they're also going around spending $500-800K on farms, building 6,000sq ft house and paying cash for everything. They are shrewd business people, especially the women.
Sanda, We sometimes have trouble with calves taking their coats off themselves as well, but most of them do pretty well with them. I can imagine with goats being as clever as they are they would get them off even quicker.
ReplyDeleteAs to the Amish, we are being very watchful over our acreage. They have already acquired a not so hot reputation on the hunting issue in the area.
He is so cute in his little coat!
ReplyDeleteHi Cubby, He is a lively one too...it was hard to catch him standing still long enough for a photo.
ReplyDeleteThe more Shorthorns in the world, the better! Do you register your MS/HO heifers?
ReplyDeleteBarrett, thanks for visiting. So far we love the calves thrown by this bull and wish we had drawn more than 200 units from him. We haven't registered any calves yet, but we are thinking of registering at least one really nice red one.
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