infertile heifers (added pic of our bottle baby)

[77Herford]

If you still plan to keep some of the "old" cattle, be sure to AI any new additions to the herd. Trich is passed from animal to animal through natural breeding, and an infected bull will quickly infect any new heifers/cows that you add. From your picture, I can see that you probably are in one of the southern states, and Trich is quite common in many of them.

Yes, I would AI based on what I've read. I wouldn't waste money and space on a bull. The A.I would be a good option. Then buying some fresh heifers would be good too.

 

[dragonmorgan]

got a couple pics of the herd while we were out there today. We noticed one of our young cows had some afterbith hangin out but no calf in sight and her udders didnt look like they had any milk in them. We rode through the fields and checked the woods but never found anything. Thats the second time so far this year. Hopefully its only because they were so young. Anyway onto the goodie.

This is one of our smaller cows but shes still pretty young and is a good momma. Shes one of the ones we hope to keep.

This is the brindle cow I was talkin about. I think shes preggo right now but Im not sure when shes due. Shes one of our really old ones (prolly around 25 yrs old)

And one of some of the herd grazin. At last count we have 29 total (counting the 3 calves in the pen)

 

[WildRoseBeef]

That brindle cow is what an acquaintance of mine call "Tiger-stripe" or a "tiger" cow. I like that white girl you posted, she's got nice conformation to her, as does the tiger cow. Both are quite deep in body and have pretty good feet conformation. The others in the back ground look not too bad either. You're certainly going to have fun doing some culling out of this herd.

 

[dragonmorgan]

thanks. yea we def have our favorites and those are 2 of them. Its mostly the white ones and some of the older ones that are needin to be penned up and fed more that will be goin. You can really tell from our old cows that they came from a brahma bull and I really like that about them. Theres something about that jiggly neck flap that I really like lol. The older ones arent as skittish around us and they are good about stayin in the fence, no matter how crappy it is. We used to have a gorgous cow that had a beautiful set of horns. She finally died of old age at around 30 and was calving great right up until the end. We've been pretty lucky that weve only had to cull 2 of our old cows because of their condition. One because we couldnt keep any meat on her without her bein penned up and one because her udders had started gettin a little deformed and she wasnt able to feed her calves. Im hopin our favs check out good with the vet so they can stay.

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

The brindle and white cow are nice looking. You have a lot of work ahead of you, but I think that you all seem to have the right attitude and I am certainly happy for anyone that wants to get back to thier roots and make a good thing of it. I look forward to seeing more posts from you in the future on how your herd is shaping up!

 

[greybeard]

Pretty good bunch of cattle especially considering the time of year it is--just coming out of winter. I may have missed it or you didn't mention how much pasture you have available, but you want to consider that when determing how many you want to feed and keep. Definitely cull any that are not calving. If not already, start keeping some kind of records so you know where you are in terms of calves, feed costs, health problems etc. If tagging or branding isn't an option, photodocument each animal and give them a name/number. In my area, (East Texas) sale prices have been up the last week or so, with even old cows in bad shape bringing a pretty good price/cwt on the hoof, so you might want to consider what the sale barn prices are. Hard to say what the prices will be later this spring and summer, but I look for them to go a bit higher as many farmers/ranchers sold off a lot over the winter due to scarcity of hay here, and will be looking for replacements soon enough.

Tho I do understand the idea of keeping some of the oldest cows for "sentimental" reasons, the day will come when they die anyway, and you won't get anything for them. The feed costs incurred now in those animals would be better spent on younger replacement heifers as soon as you get your bull situation sorted and are sure you don't have a lepto infected herd sire.

 

[warhorse]

Wow, if that 25 year old brindle cow is still putting babies on the ground, I would say she's a "keeper".

 

[dragonmorgan]

lol yea our old cows are machines. They may take a lil longer to condition back up after givin birth but we never have any problems with their mothering abilities or their calves. Not to mention that they are good at showin the calves the ropes. 2 of our fields arent connected and the land in between isnt ours and its all woods and whenever we go to move the cows from one field to the other the older cows lead everyone through. All we have to do is open the gate in one field and then head over to the other field and count them as they come through lol. It makes it much easier on us for sure.

 

[secuono]

That brindle cow is so cool looking! And the white is so bright and clean compared to the others!

 

[77Herford]

That Brindle made my brain think of what breed or combo it could be and I came up with American. It so closely resembles the breed.

That White one resembles some Criollo breeds. To my eyes that is.