After we purchased Maggie, the little heifer who will become the start of our dairy animals, we knew we needed to purchase another cow to keep her company. We came across an Angus cow/calf pair for sale.
Meet Filet:
This will be our first time owning an Angus. She's not halter broken (a former range cow), but the sellers have managed to tame her down quite a bit and she's friendly enough. Polled, too!
Filet comes with a very young polled heifer calf, also pure Angus.
We haven't really chosen a name for the calf yet, but somehow I suspect she'll end up being called Mignon. (Filet and Mignon!)
The sellers will breed back Filet before she's delivered at the end of May. Ironically she'll be bred to a Dexter bull.
Filet and little Mignon will become the base of our beef herd. This gives us a dairy lineage through Maggie, and a beef lineage through Filet.
Progress toward a homestead!
Make sure you have super strong fences for former range cows. They will destroy the strongest of fences, even cattle panel fences, and electric fences won't stop them either. My neighbor had former range cows and they were nothing but problems, they can jump over a standard fence too.
ReplyDeleteYou won't be disappointed with a Dexter/Angus cross. We bought a Dexter cow with her half Angus calf. He grew fast and none of the usual wildness associated with most Angus. There's a lot of Angus cattle here kept in with single strand electric or 3 strand barbed wire. Not quite range cattle but they don't usually have much human interactions besides feeding.
ReplyDeleteWe had Dexters for quite a while, wonderful critters and easier to push around than our Holsteins because of size.
Enjoy having bovines again!
Lisa
Sounds like a whole lotta milking coming up, and surely there's a plan for such abundance of milk.
ReplyDeleteOur former range cows (Angus Beef master crosses, and soon a Hereford Angus cross) have done none of the above, but good fences are always important. We only have ten acres of field for them (it cannot be called "pasture") Congratulations on your cows!
ReplyDelete"Mignon" means small, cute, dainty, so it works for a calf.
ReplyDeletePatrice, congratulations on moving forward on your new homestead. I know it is a work in progress one step at a time.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you need to live there for a few years to get "the flow" of the property.
Debbie in MA
PS It won't be long when you can start planting in your raised beds as well.
Very cute pair, but she looks like she is crossed with dairy of some sort by the look of her ribs and hip bones.
ReplyDeleteWe prefer raising Angus over Dexter, much calmer breed.
I was raised on a 60 acre farm in the 50s and 60s. We had a small herd of black Angus cattle. There is nothing like hearing, "The cows are out!" in the dark of the night that will make one appreciate a good, strong flashlight when those cattle are black Angus and there is no moon. Make sure your fences are strong, the gates secured, and those flashlight batteries are charged ... 'cause they're still gonna get out, now an' then.
ReplyDeleteFirst day we had 3 angus heifers delivered Spouse was out of town working. 1 am I here a "stampede" outside. The heifers had escaped from the corral into a pasture. Went out of the ATV to round them up with a spot light. Next day secured the fence and all was well after that. Breeder then said that most of his heifers were escape artists but failed to let us know.
DeleteAngus do not have horns
ReplyDeleteI like your names! They also lend well to the nicknames, "Mignony or Minnie" and "Filly", or other things you might choose.
ReplyDeleteMy animals get named many things usually based on personality. Like 'Tilla the chicken who was low hen on the totem pole amongst her barred rock sisters. So she terrorized the smaller hens of my other breed and hence her name. She also was unfriendly to me and would not come when called and was untrainable to other voice commands, unlike the other chickens.
Then I read an article about how animals respond well to names ending in "y", because the sound means your voice goes up a note instead of down, and for some reason they like that.
So, I renamed 'Tilla, Tilla Dee, and magic began to happen. She now comes running when I call her, anticipates and obeys simple voice commands, and enjoys petting and being picked up. So far now this nick-naming has worked with cats, dogs and chickens.
Most people don't go so far with getting animals to cooperate. But I am old, and if it makes life easier, it's worth a try.
It also helps if I need to catch some critter to examine or treat them if we have that relationship.
Reading is probably the best thing I've ever learned to do. All too often some problem turns out to be caused by my own lack of knowledge.
Your cows also remind me of the picture you posted a while back of a woman with a herd of cows following her. Clearly you love them.