Hello from the Texas Hill Country!

[Tkoebke]

My husband and I have Angus cattle, 2 Border Collies and recently acquired 7 Black Hawaiian lambs which we are bottle feeding and a Great Pyrenees puppy to boot! We are learning all the time and appreciate a forum in which to learn and ask questions. Looking at adding chickens next.

 

[Mini Horses]

Welcome! chickens are normally first, not next. You're brave! Those lambs are adorable.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Welcome love your pup!

 

[farmerjan]

Lambs are adorable.... not familiar with that breed.
Cows look real good. How many do you have and do you run a cow calf operation and sell calves when weaned as feeders or want to raise some for private beef sales?
Please put your "Texas Hill Country" in your avatar as I personally will never remember where you are... go up to your name on top right, account details, and scroll down to location... for all us "in our prime" people with memories like sieves.....
Dogs look like they are in 7th heaven with the water...

 

[purplequeenvt]

Welcome from central KY!

Border Collies are the best! Mine is 2.5yo and is started on sheep.

 

[Tkoebke]

Lambs are adorable.... not familiar with that breed.
Cows look real good. How many do you have and do you run a cow calf operation and sell calves when weaned as feeders or want to raise some for private beef sales?
Please put your "Texas Hill Country" in your avatar as I personally will never remember where you are... go up to your name on top right, account details, and scroll down to location... for all us "in our prime" people with memories like sieves.....
Dogs look like they are in 7th heaven with the water...

Never heard about Black Hawaiian sheep until we had the offer to bottle feed (and keep) these lambs. They are from a neighboring rancher to my sister's place. Normally they just let these lambs expire- understandable when you are running over 150 head of sheep. Getting a crash course and having to build a pen and lamb barn quickly but finally finished yesterday. Just need to paint. The lambs are loving it! And the dogs are entertained by watching them.
Attached a photo of what the fully grown rams look like.
We run a small cow/calf. Anywhere from 6 to 12 cows. Right now only 6 head due to extended drought. Haven't really thought about raising for private beef sales other than for ourselves and family. Is that what you do?

 

[Tkoebke]

Welcome from central KY!

Border Collies are the best! Mine is 2.5yo and is started on sheep.

Beautiful dog! Love Border Collies as well. Now that we have sheep we need to start our two on training.

 

[farmerjan]

My son raises White Texas Dall sheep... similar horns on white sheep. He has sold rams to a couple of hunting preserves in Pa.... and sells the culls at the normal stockyard which they do pretty good during the ethnic holidays. I think the horns on the Black Hawaiians are actually a wider spread.

We have a fairly large operation... I am a homesteader at heart but a full time farmer in practicality. We run a mostly angus cow calf herd... running as many as 175 cow calf pairs but now down to around 125-140. Did it mostly all on rented ground until a few years ago when DS bought an 80 acre place and then last year he bought the 100+ acre farm we had been leasing for years from the widow of a very good friend that passed away from cancer about 8-10 years ago. We had helped on that farm some and then did most of the work for the last 2 years he was still here. DS says he will be in debt for the rest of his life, but wants to be able to retire to farming. Yes, he works full time for VDOT and I have been a full time milk tester and part time waitress for years. Now I am part time milk testing as farms sell out and the numbers decline... and also don't want to work as many hours.
DS has been working into more of backgrounding steers and putting together groups to sell. Mostly buying bull calves at discounted prices from steers, working them through the chute and then making up matching groups to sell; weaned, vaccinated and bunk broke ready for the next operation. Still in the "small stage" of doing that, .... but we have all our own calves to also sell. We mostly sell weaned calves in the 4-6 wt range... depending on the time of the year and the markets. We make our own hay and have grown about 10-15 acres of corn for several years to make corn silage to feed the fall calving group and the weaned feeder calves. We calve in 2 groups, a spring and a fall group. More spring cows, about 2/3 of the cows, but have a fall group also.
Of course here, we run one cow/calf pair to every 2 acres, compared to more arid places; and we do alot of rotational grazing on the several places we still rent. And this past year we had a very good year for crops, and the corn crop made exceptional silage. We did not have the drought conditions that many had... there were places 30-50 miles away that did not get the timely rains we did. It is something you just deal with....
With the drought thoughout much of the country and the sell down of so many brood cows, as well as so many ranchers/farmers getting older, there is a very low number of cows around and it is pushing the prices higher. But, it is only about 2 out of every 6-10 years that you make a "profit" over and above operating costs.

Like the Black Hawaiian sheep.

 

[Ridgetop]

Do you have ewe lambs and ram lambs? If so do you plan to breed them? I wonder if any of the Texas game farms would be interested in adult rams with that horn spread? You would have to keep them until maturity, but the pix of the adult black rams with their horns is striking. Might be a good business opportunity.

Welcome.

 

[SageHill]

Welcome from San Diego county. Sheep, dogs (Belgians) and chickens.
My dogs are my fences when we graze the sheep - a different style of herding than the border collies.