Sometime late Wednesday night or very early Thursday morning, Longhorn heifer ‘Whitebutt’ dropped a bull calf weighing about 70 pounds adding one more mouth to feed this coming winter. He’s a good looking calf, healthy, up walking with Whitebutt, he seems to be getting all the milk that he wants. Little Red (longhorn heifer) is due in about 14 to 20 days as well.
I got on the internet this morning, conducted a search and found an elastor and 25 rubber bands delivered to my door for about $35.00. A vet will charge at least that much to castrate a calf, so I will order the equipment needed to do that chore myself and then I will own the equipment and will not need to pay a vet. Before I order, I want to check Atwoods (local farm store) and see if I can buy this equipment from them.
Son-n-law RT has gone to town to try to pickup a 100 pounds or so of hard red winter wheat seed. He will broadcast by hand to over seed some of the south pasture with wheat seed in hopes we get a bit of rain on his seed and that will him a bit of green grazing this winter for this small cow herd. The wheat seed really needs to be drilled in, but even a small well used wheat drill is $700 dollars or more and simply not worth the investment for the small amount it would be used. {Well used is farmers code words for It’s A Piece Of Junk}.
Raising your own beef is a long slow process. From birth to butcher weight will take from 33 to 36 months to get to that magic 1200 pound weight. At 1200 pounds live weight you can except to get somewhere around 725 to 750 pounds (at best) of cutup (box beef) beef. There are many factors that effect box weight and if you really want more information Live, Hanging and Box weight of beef is a break down that will help you understand the different terms used in meat processing and why you only get about 50 to 60 percent of live weight in your freezer.
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We are getting plenty of needed rain here in AR. Thank God. Ranchers had sold most of the feeders early but now the pastures are green again! Our neighbor has a small herd of LongHorns. He had two cows and lost one in the 2008 flood as well as the other cow’s calf. So sad. His cows are a hobby mostly (like pets) but he does sell off when he gets too many bulls. He tries to sell them to people using them to breed and start their own LongHorn herd because he doesn’t really want them killed but…who knows. The cow has a new calf every spring and we all wait for the event. Lack of hay caused him to sell four this year so he is left with Big Bull, Momma Cow, Abner and Junior. I love reading your blog because I can relate to so much of it.
Re: jsnapp62 – Thanks for finding time to visit my Tiny Blog.
Grin, I’m glad you are benefiting from a few well needed rains. We have had more showers than last year, but, are still classified in an Exceptional drought. Hay has tripled in price in the past 2 years from $30-$35 a bail to $100.00 or more a bail this year for good quality hay. Loss of a cow and calf can easily be a $1,500.00 loss. 2 years ago I lost a $1,200.00 steer to cattle rustlers.
More than a full time job!