Meet the newest members of our family!!!!!!

[bamagirl68]

I want one!!! I love cows and calves but don't have room for one. I remember when I was a girl my grandaddy had a few milk cows. One was named Star and we rode her like a horse! She was so gentle. I cried so much when she died.

 

[newchickowner]

Yeah, I'm with you. I've thought about raising chickens and cows for meat, to be more self sufficient, but I'm the kind of person that CAN'T look at the animal AT ALL if I'm going to eat it! Guess my great-grandmother's ways aren't in my genetics! I'll just stick to going to the butcher's shop and buying my meat already dead.

 

[Critter Crazy]

Awwwww.....how sweet!!! We are planning on raising our own Meat cows sometime next year.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

They're cute calves now but, by the time you get ready to butcher them they will have grown to be big and usually not so cute. The trick is not to be to attached by the time it is ready for them to go. I've had calves we have babied and been favorites but, knowing they were going, stopped babying them as they grew. When it came time it wasn't all that big of deal.

 

[Moonwalker]

We picked up a 2 month old calf at an auction and were going to keep him for the petting zoo and train him to let kids sit on him for pics. I was bottle feeding him once a day to keep the habit for pictures (cattle will keep the suck reflex into adulthood if they keep in practice) Unfortunately, despite my stressing repeatedly that although now, when he weighed 80 lbs it was cute for him to rear up and put his feet on your leg or butt when he was hungry, DO NOT LET HIM!!!( It's NOT so cute when he weighs 800lbs!) One of the girls who fed him on my days off, not only let him do that, she would push on his forehead to get him to back off and charge. I found this out when I was puzzled as to why he was getting worse instead of better about it, when someone else tattled on her. I did break him to saddle, and to do several tricks, but we had to sell him because by the time I found out what was going on, we couldn't trust him around kids. We were keeping him in a small pasture with a couple of mares and foals for a while until we sold him and he would charge from across the field at whoever brought the feed in (no bottle by then)
She thought it was funny until one day she was the one that had to go feed in that pen and she got charged and he was between her and the fence. By that time he was about 300 lbs.
Luckiliy we found a buyer for him that wanted him for a pet.

 

[allenacres]

Moonwalker that brought shivers to my spine!

We raise Scottish Highlands and last year our cow had her, and our, first calf. The calf was wobbling over into the horse area so I picked it up and carried it to safty. Mama cow thought I was hurting her baby and charged me. Good thing they have horns so I had something to hold onto as she pushed me across the pasture.
Here is a photo of Sweetpea, our frist calf (standing), and Freezerboy, our second calf. This was back in April 07

I have a question about these two holstein calves? So will they pretty much be for hamburger since they are holsteins?

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Even though they are holsteins you can have any cut of (beef) meat you want out of them not just hamburger.

 

[lacyloo]

aww I would train the 2 calves to take a saddle and start riding your kids"grandkids? " on them..

 

[jkcove08]

My son was 2 when we got my daughter a bottle calf for 4H. The went out to feed it the first morning after we brought it home and while my daughter was suppose to be feeding him and my son watched my hubby was feeding the dogs. We kept him in the large run in out kennel. Suddenly my hubby herd my son saying ow, ow , ow and when he went running over there the calf was head butting him in the chest... The calf had let go of the bottle and was looking for milk form my son..lol Hubby grabbed him up and told my daughter to feed her calf.. We learned to let Colton in after the calf was fed. Jenn

 

[BrahmaMama]

I raised 3 Holstein bottle calves a few years ago, and with the Black Angus cross we have now, looking back I can't tell the difference save the Angus meat have a little more marbling. Ours are fed hay and corn...went to the store one time and bought some steaks because I hadn't dethawed any meat, neither my husband or me finished it, yuck. We have gotten spoiled with our own beef.

We are raising 8 bottle calves right now. The first one came at the beginning of January (don't have my records in front of me) and the last one my husband just picked up this week. We are getting them from a dairy also. They breed their Holstein cows to a black angus bull-from what I understand, to get a smaller calf, which in turn allows for an easier delivery. The dairy also sells their all black heifer calves for the same price as the boys. We have one holstein spotted bull calf, and a really neat mousy grey bull calf-I just fell in love with him

We did end up getting two heifers, and depending how they turn out, will be retaining them, and raising our own calves.

We are still doing bottles, though with my broken finger, it's getting harder, especially when they do their "gentle" little nudge...yeah right!

With the 3 I did several years ago, we had already switched them to buckets. I told my father in law-he bought them, they are on our farm/we do chores, etc. That this is enough for now, until we get the first few weaned, eesh! I also have a hard time picturing eating them, especially when they are beautiful, doe eyed calves. Even the first few packages of meat taste "different" to me....but I just have to think about the big, pain in the butt steers that took us a half a day to load into the trailer

and I'm good for the rest of the season.