Saturday, January 9, 2021

A landmark passed

 

Treacherous footing. Churned up, frozen mud.
The last four cattle shipped from Sprite's farm this morning.

It took the trucker less than ten minutes to back up the trailer, untie the rope holding the two gates and shooing them into the trailer.

I helped Sprite get the critters into the shed at six this morning. That is when she had been feeding them so that is when we locked them up.

There were tears in Sprite's eyes. The Captain died in September of 2019 and these were the last of "his" cattle. Prices for beef are strong.

This is the first time we have not had grazing animals, either owned by the Captain/Sprite or me since about 1994.

I have my eyes open for something to keep the pasture grazed down. It might be a couple of bags-of-bones cull cows. It might be calves. I am not picky but I need about 3000 pounds of something.

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5 comments:

  1. coyoteken48January 9, 2021 at 1:25 PM

    Stick with cows. If you get goats or sheep you would have to redo all of your fence. Lamas are costly an high maintenance. Cows are easy to keep in and don't do a lot of damage if they get out.---ken

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    Replies
    1. Mike GuentherJanuary 9, 2021 at 2:25 PM

      One thing...never name your cow that you plan on having slaughtered.

      Tangentially related, a few years ago, we had a neighbor who's cow kept getting through the fence and would come on our property and start mooing under our bedroom window early early in the morning, like one or two o'clock. After asking said neighbor politely a few times to fix the fence and keep his cow on his own property, the wife had enough. She called the neighbor up and told him he better come and get his damn cow or she was gonna start filling her freezer.

      Delete
    2. TwoDogsJanuary 9, 2021 at 11:37 PM

      Oh, I don't know. The range that I shoot 4 matches a month on is also a ranch where the owner keeps 20 or so head of cattle. They are all pets. Domesticated critters with names like Sirloin and Brisket. We help out petting them and one day they disappear, one by one. Nobody ever asks where they went.

      Delete
  2. StefanJanuary 9, 2021 at 3:21 PM

    Might want to get a breeding pair or two...for the rainy days. Train them for the plough?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Contrarian ViewJanuary 9, 2021 at 7:00 PM

    There's a lot of money in breeding these days. People really want to raise their own food. I'd check into calf prices in your area.

    ReplyDelete

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