buying cattle, instagram style

Daddy Bird and I had a date of sorts the other day.

We've been expanding our cattle herd, so that means lots of trips to the stockyards to buy cows.  Romantic, huh?

Honestly, we don't get much time alone together these days, so I'll take what I can get.

Thought I'd share some Instagram pics from our last trip.

The same auctionere is there almost every time we go.  I love to listen to the auction.  It makes you want to buy something...

My favorite part of the stockyards is the people watching.  These folks decided they would put a bull in the back of a truck, in a cage.   I decided I would take a picture.

After you buy cattle, you have to go pick them up.  Daddy Bird is waiting patiently.





Here they come, the new mamas.

All loaded up on the trailer.  The stickers on the cows are their sale number and one that tells approximately when they are due to calve.

Home Sweet Home!!

a little contest

Meet #18.

She doesn't have a name, just a number.  I name some of our cows that we've had a while, but we haven't had her very long.

She is fancy none the less.

Most of our cows are solid colors.  Black, white, red.  #18 is what we call roan. 

I like it!

Here's another view.

We've got calves popping out all over the place and #18 is due fairly soon, so here's what I want to do.  I want to have a little contest to see who can guess what color her calf will be.

We don't know what color the bull was (we bought her already bred) so it could be just about anything.

Leave your guess in the comment section.  I'll tell you my guess in my next post, and I'll be sure to take lots of photos when the calf is born.

So what do you think?

Solid black?  Roan like mama?  Purple with green spots?

The winner gets...the satisfaction of winning.  But it will be fun to see who guesses correctly!

then and now

Daddy Bird was out checking on our weanling calves last week and snapped a few pictures.  It was really interesting to see how much these calves have grown since they were born!

I'm going to do a little comparison for y'all with the pictures taken when they were born in March.  Keep in mind these calves were raised on their mothers' milk and grass.

Here's a little Angus Charolais cross steer wading in the creek at about a week old.

Here's the same steer at approximately 9 months and 600 lbs!

Here's a little black and white faced cutie.

Here's the same steer now!  Not quite as cute.

This photo was taken the day this little lady was born.

This is her today.  Her Mama is always the first cow to greet us when we come out to move them to a new pasture.  We're thinking about keeping her to breed next year.

This is my favorite calf of the whole bunch.  The red calf in the front.

Here she is today.  I'm keeping this one whether Daddy Bird wants to or not.

It's amazing to me how much these calves have grown in almost 9 months.  We'll do another comparison at a year.

Next year's calf crop should start arriving in 3 months or so!

round up

A couple of times a year Daddy Bird and I help our good friends the Paces round up and work their cattle.

I've known Clint

and his dad Fred

almost as long as I've known Daddy Bird.

Fred recently married one of the most kind and delightful women I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.  Caroline and Fred are truly perfect for each other!

Just look at the newlyweds!

Anyway, back to the cattle.  Depending on the time of year we gather approximately 100 head of cows and their calves and either work them, wean them, sort them, or whatever else needs to be done.
Gathering the cows wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that they are on like 300 acres and it's just one big field with lots of places for them to hide, a creek or 2 to cross, and they really don't want to be rounded up in the first place.

I wish I had some photos of the whole rounding up cattle drive process, but honestly it takes all my concentration to make sure my horse and I are in the right place at the right time and not allowing any stragglers to get past us.  I can't do that and take pictures at the same time!

There are always stragglers.  Here's Clint bringing up the last of the group

After we herd all the cattle into the holding pens, the sorting begins.  This time we were weaning, so the calves had to be seperated from the cows.  It's during this process that I'm always amazed that no one gets killed.  It's usually a bit of a rodeo.

Something always gets roped.

Here are some random snapshots from the day.  I'll let them speak for themselves.

Whew what a day!  I always leave filthy and tired and sore, but it's such a treat to spend a day outdoors, enjoying nature, my horse, and my friends and family.

foggy morning

Last Saturday we woke up to a really thick fog.

That dang fog was thick as pea soup.  Have you ever heard that expression?

Anyway, we needed to sort out a crazy cow that Daddy Bird had been needing to sell for weeks, and we had to do it in the fog.

I went out and took feed to the cows to get them to come up into the pen, and Daddy Bird brought up the rear on Pedro.

Here come the stragglers.

Remember the twins?  There they are with their mama.  They're not as big as the other calves, but that's what happens with twins.

Here comes Pedro.

It was really creepy how I couldn't see anything coming until it was right up on me.

We were a bit concerned that crazy cow wouldn't come up with the rest of the herd, but everything worked out well.

It's amazing how motivating food can be.

Our other calves are getting big.

Here are the three amigos.  That red heifer on the right is my favorite.

The fog burned off by late morning and we went back later in the day for the previously mentioned "nasty calf incident."  We looked across the pen and saw this enormous steer:

nursing his mother through the fence!  I wish I had gotten a shot of that for y'all.  What makes it even funnier is
1.  He's been weaned 2 times already and
2. She actually stood there next to the fence and let him do it!

If you look really closely you can see the milk dripping off his chin hair.

I guess other species have trouble weaning their babies too.

what's a ruminent?

Are ya'll ready for your ag lesson of the day?  Here's a post written by Daddy Bird for your reading enjoyment.

How can cows and other herbivores survive on grass alone?

A cow is a ruminant, and a ruminant has four stomachs.  The first stomach is called the Rumen, which is a large fermentation vat.  The Rumen can hold 40 gallons of food!  In this large fermentation vat (Rumen), cows have bacteria that break down grass.  It is actually those bacteria, as they die in the Rumen that provide much of the nutrition and protein that the cow needs. 

Have you ever heard of a cow chewing it's cud?  Well, when a cow rests after grazing they will sit in the shade and chew their cud.  They actually regurgitate Rumen contents and re-chew their food.  This allows the cow to break down the grass into smaller pieces to make it easier to digest.

So what are the other three stomachs?
One is the Reticulum, which is a small stomach attached to the Rumen.  Another is the Omasum which has multiple folds like the pages of a book.  These folds absorb nutrients.  Last is the Abomasum which is much like our stomach and secretes gastric acid and digestive enzymes.

So what are some other ruminants?  Sheep, goats and buffalo are all ruminants.

Horses are not ruminants.  They have one stomach much like ours (humans) but they also have a very large cecum (like a huge Appendix) and a very large colon.  The Cecum acts kind of like the cow's Rumen and holds 8 gallons, while the horse's colon can hold approximately 20 gallons of digesting food and liquid.

Thanks Daddy Bird!

the beef is in

The Girly Bird and I drove down to Marksbury Farm in Lancaster yesterday to pick up our beef.  It was almost an hour and a half one way.  I'm not complaining, just sayin'.

We made burgers for dinner, and if I do say so myself, the beef is goooood.  There's always a bit of unknown with grass fed beef.  It can taste a bit different with each steer depending on what they were eating, their age, etc.  This one worked out really well, and Daddy Bird and I breathed a collective sigh of relief.  Ahhhhhhh.

Then the fun began.  We were up past 1 AM parceling out all the beef that had been prepurchased, and then freezing it.  Ugghh.  This morning came a bit too early.

All our steaks and roasts are sold.  We've got lots of ground beef left.  If you are local and may be interested, drop me an email at bluegrassbeefky@aol.com

Happy Friday - I'm off to bed.

twins

We had a cool thing happen this year.  One of our mama cows had twins.

It's not a super unusual thing to happen with cattle, but it's also not an extremely desirable thing.  What happens a lot of times is that when a cow has twins, she has trouble feeding them both, and neither one thrives the way they should.  Or one thrives, and the other does poorly.

This is not the case here.  Both calves look pretty great!  And mama seems to be doing well too.  Daddy Bird thinks that some cows are prone to having twins.  I'll take his word for it - he is a veterinarian, right?

We're pretty sure this same mama had twins last year, and I ended up bottle raising one of them.  Ugh.  Not cool.

I told Daddy Bird there would be no bottle raising this year.

Luckily, there's no need this time!  I feel for this mama though.  I'm nursing one baby and it seems like it's all I do some days.  I can't imagine nursing two!

Although, all she has to do is graze.  She doesn't have to cook, clean, and do laundry.  And her husband's not around, asking her to do things for him.

Ah, the life of a cow.