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RE: Calf Watch At Sacred Acres - Blessed Again!
I LOVE her name! I may steal it when we finally get a milk cow.
Glad they're both doing well and in the warm barn for the night.
One of the things I love about our place is hearing our neighbors' cattle lowing at night; we have them in pretty much every direction except east, which is the river.
The only animals in that direction (so far) are our goats. ;-)
Lol! Thanks! She has lived up to it since she was a little calf! We are going to move to mini dairy breeds after Bessie.... um... you know. It has been quite the learning curve, and when 1500 pounds of "dog" starts acting frisky it is a little intimidating, even when I know they don't WANT to hurt me!
Yeah, I can imagine.
I got in a tad bit of trouble when I was a kid, maybe eight? - for climbing up onto the back of our cousin's Brahma bull. He was a big sweetheart, and liked me, and seemed to be perfectly at ease having me draped across his back. My cousin . . . not so much.
I've been going back and forth over breeds, and the front runner so far from a practicality standpoint is Irish Dexter, which as you probably know are one of the few triple purpose breeds, raised for meat, milk and as a draught animal. The latter really appeals to me, as does getting a pair of draught horses, as I don't want any heavy equipment in our woods when it comes time to do some serious clearing of all the non-native invasives that have taken over in some places.
Scottish Highland cattle are a triple-purpose breed as well, at least in Scotland, and are my personal favorite breed of choice. But even though there are breeders in Tennessee, almost all Highland cattle in the States are from meat lines, not from good milking lines, and they are rarer, and therefore a lot more expensive. But, like Dexters, they tend to have really sweet personalities, and are a smaller breed, so for now, they are still my front runner.
On the other hand, I can get Irish Dexters, good ones, in the next county. So my first milking cow is likely to be a Dexter.
Last but not least, I've also considered zebus, which are purportedly the oldest breed of cattle in the world, as well as the smallest. And being a whopping 5' 2" tall, that makes them quite attractive to me.
Then again, Marek and I have both heard that yak milk is supposed to be among the healthiest in the world, so naturally he wants a yak. And an aardvark. And a giant sloth. And capybaras. And . . .
Have I mentioned that we're both basically grown up toddlers when it comes to animals? ;-)
Though I must say, when Lolo was about six months old, and I was walking him twice a day by leash up and down our street, he made good friends with one of our neighbors' herds of Angus cattle, especially the big red bull. He and the bull made friends through the gate, and the bull slimed him more than once, taking pretty much his whole face in one massive lick. Lolo, of course, loved it.
LOL! You are hilarious! I heard ap oem once about yaks:
Meat, milk, wool,
Ride, push, pull.
Hard NOT to want a yak after that... :)
I will be curious to see what you settle on - I presume there will be a post lol!
No doubt, though that may still be a year or more out.
The previous owners logged the place before they left, and dropped several of the trees on the barn fences. So we need to fully fence the barnyard, and replace the doors on the largest stall and the barn itself. Not to mention that we're still finding LOADS of trash and other refuse that they left behind.
Don't look now, though, what my husband REALLY wants are European bison, which at this point are found only in Poland.
As much as I love them , our place is NOT big enough for bison, and they don't exactly fall into my "friendly and easy to handle" category.
Which breeds are you considering?
Mini dexter, we have an "in" with a breeder.
We have a pretty major mess too... a little creek out back was the dump for several generations...
Ugh - I can so relate.
The previous owners here had a small fire pit right behind our house, which we initially thought was a good thing, until we started picking out all manner of trash that they obviously dumped in it right before leaving . . . broken bottles, ragged pieces of metal and wire, melted plastic and just plain junk that still turns up after heavy rains.
We finally got a couple of big semi tire rims, and brought up a load of rock and brick from the barnyard,in order to resurface around it and make our current double fire pit. And we still occasionally find junk that was trashed years ago.
And evidently their dump of choice was just to pitch stuff into the woods behind the house. Unreal. I can't tell you how much barbed wire we've dragged out of the woods.
There are still a few less accessible areas we've yet to fully explore (mostly due to ticks), and, once we do, God knows what we're likely to find.
Though I will say, I got one of my favorite small pots that way. Marek found a small stainless steel pot that someone apparently decided was either impossible, or just too much trouble to clean. After cleaning it successfully, and relatively easily, I use it all the time.
The worst is the barnyard, though, where they had a massive pile of car parts, barbed wire and miscellaneous metal, most of which we hauled to the local dump, but some of which still resurfaces after heavy rains.
And I'm constantly finding small pieces of broken glass around the front of the barn, which if nothing else, makes me doubly glad our goats have hooves to protect their feet.