Bull

[fishpharmer]

Bull (for now ) Calf born January 24, 2009.   The mama is half angus and half holstein.  One of my best mama cows.  Bull is Brangus.  I don't normally name calves but I think I am gonna call him droopy because his droopy little ears.








Look at that bag, got milk?



First sniff of a human, interesting how curious they are.  A brahma cross cow wouldn't put up with this.

Hope you enjoy, I did.

[Warbird]

Nice!  You going to keep that bull for breeding later or sell him?  I imagine he'll fetch a pretty fair price if you sell him.  My parents-in-law have a smallish cow operation on their ranch in Arkansas but last I knew, they didn't have any angus.

[fishpharmer]

He will be "fixed" and sold.   But not til he sucks all the milk he can and weighs about five hundred pounds.  I will take shots of next bunch going to the sale.

I keep some heifers but try to improve the offspring with the best bull I can afford.

Warbird, Arkansas is some pretty country, you from flatland or Ozarks?  You a duck hunter?

Thanks for looking.  Someday I am gonna come see ya in AK.

[Warbird]

My parents-in-law live in the Ozarks.  They have some land near the town of Ozark.  I've only been to Arkansas twice.  Loved it.  Except for the chiggers and ticks.

As I've said elsewhere, FF members are welcome in my home.  Just give us plenty of advance notice. 

[bull]

got nervous when I saw the title, thought I may have done something !! ;)
Nice looking calf !!

[thecfarm]

A black calf with droopy ears.Does look differant,but sounds good to me.Yes,I enjoyed it. Thank-you

[isawlogs]

     8)    Nice looking calf  !!!  I am always amazed when seeing pics taken at this time of the year and looking at green/greenish pastures 

Here is what I look at in the morning .  No need to tell you , but I will anyways , the thermometer is sitting at -30° C here this morning , the snow makes that skish skish noise when walking on it .  ;D

 

[Radar67]

Marcel, you definitely wouldn't want to see my winter rye grass patch then.  ;D ;D It is nice and green.

Nice look calf there James.

[isawlogs]

 
     Au contraire mon ami  ;D   Would love to see it ...   With weather like you have it must be so much easier on the new born, then again here , ya got to be tuff right from the start  :D :D

[SamB]

Seeing your pictures brings back memories of childhood. Like many of you I come from a humble rural up bringing. My family kept a small number of farm animals and raised a garden to help extend the food budget. We had a milk cow and usually one or two of her calves running around. The cows and the calves were always referred to by name and treated more like pets. One of the favorite stories my older sisters like to share with the younger family members, relates to a dinner table event when we were enjoying a nice beef roast. I being a young innocent lad of seven or eight years of age asked the unforgivable question of my mother...Mom is this Bucky we're eating?...My sisters who's duties were to clean up the dinner dishes, said the dogs ate quite well that day.
You will probably be wise to sell Droopy Ears when the time is right!

[woodsteach]

That dude has a little bit of ear!

We won't start calving for hopefully 6 more weeks.  And there had better be no ears that look like that ;D.  Ours are mostly reg. angus.

woodsteach

[CLL]

pfish, we have Brahma cows and you can get to the calves without any trouble. The old type brahma's had a attitude sometimes, but the new beefer type brahma's has most of the attitude out of them. Anyone that has worked cows knows theres exceptions to every rule. The cows that I've seen that is worst about chasing you off calves is charolais. Love them ears on that calf, sure can tell he took after his daddy.

[Tom]

The picture brings back memories of my childhood too.  Seeing all those patties of fertilizer that the cows provide for free, brought to mind a game we played.  You take your shoes off (don't want to mess them up) and see who can get the furthest across the pasture without standing on bare ground.  From the looks of the first picture, I think I could make it to the hayring.  :D

I love calves.  They are the prettiest and most innocent looking of any animal.  The Mommas are pretty too, with their big, proud eyes.  Somthing about motherhood that brings out the best in an animal.  Yeah, even them.  :D

[Slabs]

Droopy.    That'll work.  Reminds me of the old joke about the Indian chief that named all the papoose's in the tribe,  but we won't go there since it's a little risque.

[getoverit]

My dad would always name his cows and then when we were eating supper would comment on how tasty "bootsie" was....just a warning about naming your cows :D

[fishpharmer]

This forum is good luck, had a new black heifer calf this evening.  It was too dark to take a picture with my phone (source of all my pictures actually).  I will post as soon as I have time. 

I am glad everyone enjoyed the pics and thanks for the comments.

I thought I would share a picture of a calf and mama with alot of "ear" as Woodsteach said.  This is a heifer calf from my all time favorite (half brahma and half holstein) cow thats over twenty years old.  She has earned her keep.  The calf will become a brood cow on my place.

See where calf gets her "ear"




A couple weeks later

[beenthere]

Fishpharmer

Goin ta start their flyin lessons pretty soon ??   

Great pics, thanks..

[Corley5]

  Nice calves  8) 8)  I like their ears 
  Seeing the calves frisking in the barn yard on a warm spring day is the one thing I miss about our cow calf operation.  Then I remind myself about calving troubles, scours, calves born in spring snow storms, late night trips to the barn to check on expectant cows etc.  I'm glad we got out of that business 

[stonebroke]

Corley

All you had to do was calve later in the year. When you calve on green grass, you generally don't get scours. Use the Konafel method and you can sleep at night, Calve three year olds and less calving problems..

Stonebroke

[Gary_C]

This was kind of a sad day for me. I took the very last heifer from our dairy herd to the sale barn for the dairy sale tomorrow. Just sad for a while till I remembered those seven day a week milkings, frozen water cups and the gutter full of water on below zero days, and broken barn cleaner chains.  :

That's a nice looking calf. Been thinking about buying Holstein bull or heifer calves to raise to sell. Might be a good time as I glanced at todays calf sale and I think the top was $50 for bull calves. By the time they are ready for market, the price may be back up again.  8)

[Norm]

Gary that's got to be the farmer in you talking. 

I'm curious why you choose this particular cross fish? Around here the angus crosses have almost taken over. I still see a few charolais and herfords but they're few and far between.

[Corley5]

Corley

All you had to do was calve later in the year. When you calve on green grass, you generally don't get scours. Use the Konafel method and you can sleep at night, Calve three year olds and less calving problems..

Stonebroke

I failed to mention fence maintenance, manure hauling and manual barn cleaning ( I would have cut the end out of the barn by now to get the tractor and loader in  8) ) and finding someone to watch the herd if we wanted to go somewhere for a few days.  Dad and I both agree it's much nicer raising hay for market than feeder calves      It'll be twenty years this coming fall since there've been cattle here.  Doesn't seem that long.  Methods, meds etc have changed but it's still pretty much the same.  Whenever I get feeling too nostaligic about brood cows and calves I stop in for a visit at my friends reg. angus operation when he's calving.  That's all the reminder it takes  8)  My Grandpa grew up with cattle, beef as a kid and he milked for a time too.  He didn't know what he'd do without his cattle but sold them and retired at age 70.  He wished he'd done it long before when he finally did.  Everytime I eat beef I'm glad there are farmers like you guys still in business  8) 8) 8)  Having our beef is another thing that we miss 

[stonebroke]

Corley

They have this thing called High Tensile fencing now. What a difference. A true lifetime fence(At least for those of us over fifty) The biggest maintence on it is cutting the trees off of it in the spring , That's all You do because it's it comes right back up. On manure hauling, my cows are out 365 days a year spreading their own manure. In the winter I have them on hayfields. Your cows have to work for you not the other way around.

Stonmebroke

[Corley5]

My friend with the reg. angus is a high tensile dealer.  Good stuff for sure.  I like the ratchet tensioners.  Loosen the wire up in the fall before the snow and tighten it back up in the spring.  Lots better than barbed wire which we'd spend a couple weeks in the spring fixing.  We've got 3 foot of snow on the flat right now.  Pretty hard for cows to get anywhere but the barn and yard and difficult to get out with the tractor to feed too far away.  With a four wheel drive tractor we could now feed out away from the barn in a field and keep trails broke for the cattle but we didn't have that 20 years ago.  At the time we fed dry chopped hay out of the barn.  There were feed racks in the end and as the hay was fed the racks were moved in.  That was before round balers got really popular and a whole lot easier than little square bales.  We only put ailing, soon to calve cows, heifers we didn't want bred and the bull in the barn until it was time to due his work.  That was more than enough manure to pitch.  The rest of them stayed outside but had shelter to get in if they so desired.  They usually preferred to stay along the woods out of the wind.  That area still still grows hay so thick it won't dry    I miss the calves frolicking and a freezer full of beef.  That's it    I'd rather haul hay than manure  ;D     

[dewwood]

Seeing all of those calves with ear reminds me of a calf we had born on Super Bowl Sunday many years ago.  It was -20 F that day and that calf did not have long ears as a matter of fact they were pretty short from freezing off.  She was in my herd for quite a while she sure was a tough old gal.