The Old Folks Home

[Wickedchicken6]

Wickedchicken that is a very handsome bull for sure. It's wonderful that you do selective breeding and raising your heard.

My husband has raised cattle his whole life here in Alabama we sold off his large heard many years ago when the guy he leased his land from sold the property.

While I had turkey and chickens I did selective breeding.

Pc Thanks. Most people around here lease land for either raising livestock or farm plots. We have have a small farm.

Somehow I find myself doing the same thing with my chickens. I know how I got here...certainly wasn't my original plan though.

We have a number of strictly-house-pet vets that once started out as cattle vets. Big money in being a cattle vet because they're few and far between, so high demand, and can be a big volume clientele depending on the size of the cattle operations. Gotta be hardcore and tough, and the ones I've talked to that have retired to saner critters did so because it was too physically demanding and hard on the body.

IF we decided to put cattle on our property (and per the CC&R's we're allotted two), I'd probably go mini Jersey or Dexter. But I doubt I ever will because of coyotes and a desire to have my orchard lawn stay that way and not be reduced to a dusty wallow.

It's true what was said about hatching vigor. We had an aggressive Emden goose (Atilla) who was basically a feathered Rottweiler. I could always tell his eggs in the incubator because they violently rocked before hatching. No problems selling his goslings, either, as they were little bulldozers in the brooder.

Love all the cattle pics!

I haven't seen a mini jersey (sounds cute) but people near town had Dexters. Unless you have a lot of coyotes...I don't think there'd be a problem. They had theirs in a very treed pasture close to the highway...but no guard animals or any thing with them. I've never heard of any losses. I saw a Canadienne cow sold at the small animal auction. Very sweet, close to a Dexter. She was a milk cow. I've been craving having a milk cow ever since.

Cattle has now usurped beans. In case anyone was wondering.
Moo.

I caught that.

Same here with the vets. Our local vet does the bulk of his business with large animals and has a huge building with pens for cattle and horses that are being treated on site. He's in the field more than in the office due to the cattle he is dealing with and I often get the feeling that dealing with small pets is more of a public service to him than a calling...although he does a really good job with them.

Around us, especially with the Amish, it's not the number of cattle that their acreage can support but the number of cattle they can squeeze into a few acres. Most of the pasture on their farms is WAY overgrazed. I remember the ex-owner of our farm being here about a year after we bought the place and decided to let the pastures and timber repair itself . The pasture grass was knee high, mixed with clover. He looked at it and asked if that is what it would have looked like if he had pulled his livestock off of it for a year and we told him yes. You could just see the gears clicking in his head.

I'm very concerned with the hatching vigor of my flock. I have one little pullet from last June in our shop now because she just isn't thriving and developing as she should be and a cockerel with the flock that is the same way. I've put a hold on hatching any more chicks from my Buff O's for the summer and am concentrating on bringing in some new eggs from established flocks around us to hatch. I bought from an established NPIP breeder only to learn later that he was getting his breeding stock not from another established breeder but from a hatchery. If only I had known then what I know now................

I have to agree. I really appreciate the majesty and power of a bull. Really impressive pictures of that boy.

Being a breeder he was probably culling and keeping the best? Hopefully anyways. I know I don't want the problems with hatchery stock. I was disappointed in hatchery stock 25 years ago. I can only imagine that the base of my EE flock were probably hatchery stock at one time. But whatever was done and whatever was selected...I'll give 2 thumbs up. I can't take any credit. I do know on the one side the birds were what she kept and what survived the foxes. The other person was old school, as in from another country. That person worked at a research farm and the chickens were fed some of the grains produced. The farm researched grain diseases and toxins. Tough chickens. I'd go back to her in a flash to get hatching eggs. I didn't set out to breed chickens when I got these. They're just too good and too tough to waste the genetics...at least in my opinion.

Gottcha about aggressive.

The boy in the first picture is the father to the one I am holding. Everyone that has them is very impressed with the Pita Pinta cock birds.

I used a WHOLE lot of words to get across a simple idea, didn't I.

Had I already looked at Wikipedia about the Pita Pinta...it says what I was trying to convey right there.
"The Pita Pinta is a good, regular layer, tough and responsive to the environment"
.
I'm just trying to think outside the box with that whole idea.

Obviously that would have to be done with fresh eggs, instead of my usual setting with old eggs.

I love both breeds! I LOVE the color of the Delaware.

The son doesn't have a straight comb. May I ask what he's bred to? And what is that comb called...a strawberry comb? I have 3 roosters with that type of comb. The rest I have close are smaller cushion combs.



Our employer had two milk cows in the time I've been here. The name escapes me but I want to say they were Brown Swiss. A few cows in the herd still have those big, brown, soft looking eyes.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

 

[Beer can]

Dairy farm I leased a bluestone quarry on yrs ago farmer had his leg broke in three spots by a Holstein cow, long time getting back mobile. His wife said it was a shame cause she was always a good cow and never tried kicking before (he had her made into hamburg)

 

[perchie.girl]

Once in my late teens I saw a bull Rider get tossed then the bull mashed him up against the fence then into the ground.... The Bull fighters (rodeo clowns) couldn't distract the bull for the paramedics to get to the rider. Probably the last rodeo I ever went to up in Ramona.

Later on in my country and western days... Line dancing Two stepping and Clogging. I wound up dancing with a wiry fellow with a white smile big cowboy hat and a huge handle bar moustashe.... Oh boy as he a good dancer and good talker.... he needed a place to stay for the night and I said sure... Me 25 and knew better.... he looked about 50

During our conversation I found out he had been in Jail for the past 5 years in Mexico... He had gotten addicted to pain killers when he was sick.
Come to find out this was the same cowboy.....

apparently that bull had broken everything but his back.... in the course of self medicating he had gone to Mexico.... His Wife had scraped enough money to bribe the Federales and got him sprung... I asked him if he was still married.... Yep... Next morning he was gone....

Sorry SGC I am in a digressive mood these days

deb

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Sorry SGC I am in a digressive mood these days

deb

It's ok, you can topic (almost) anything. I'm good with it. But I will laugh when we fill up pages and pages of bean missives.

I'm in a much better mood now, so talk about whatever ya want.

 

[chickadoodles]

My husband has been kicked by bulls and cows. One of our cows has horns and she always wants to be the first to get all the food and treats. She ain't shy about swinging those horns either.
She nearly got me once and she has swung them and my husband many times. He knocks her in the head and she knocks it off with him
Her horns scare me. I had to call dh once when I was trying to share scraps and she wanted to be first. I stopped that and started throwing them over the fence.
But really our cows have all been handled and pet as babies on up. We have kids come and pet and feed the animals sometimes and the people that come fall in love with our animals.
They even loved my Bourbon Red hen that thought she needed to sit on my shoulder or back which ever she could reach to jump on.

 

[chickadoodles]

Wow Deb that's a crazy story. I hope he got along better after he went home.

Deb my husband used to ride bulls in the all kinds of rodeo's. He won some prizes and he wore a large hat boots and large belt buckle.

 

[perchie.girl]

Wow Deb that's a crazy story. I hope he got along better after he went home.

Deb my husband used to ride bulls in the all kinds of rodeo's. He won some prizes and he wore a large hat boots and large belt buckle.

Hope after all that his wife didnt kill him....

deb

 

[bruceha2000]

Cattle are king around us. The land around our area is too hilly to seriously put crops in but perfect for grazing. There are a lot of cattle, sheep and goats especially in the Amish farms and in all honesty, grass fed beef around here draws a premium price. It's not unusual to hear of a grass fed beef going for thousands of dollars.

I have to admit also that I have a big weakness for dairy cows. They have the sweetest faces. There have been times when we have driven by Holstein Dairy cows standing by a fence and I've said that I really wouldn't mind having a sweet girl around for milk. DH reminds me of our two patients and I get jerked back to reality.

How about a nice mini cow?

 

[Beer can]

Had a truck driver Ernie Brown can't believe I remembered his name only came in for one summer about ten yrs ago, he was I guess in his later 70s told many stories of riding broncs in rodeos. Said his sons did also. He was missing all his fingers on one hand. Asked him if he lost them riding. Nope, said a butter press in a dairy plant when he was young, back before there was safety guards, had quite the story laughing about how the women were screaming and passing out. Another driver in his 60s had a bum hand, fingers were all there, sewed back on, was a farmer and had them chopped off in a barn cleaner. He was struggling trying to hook up our big milk hose to his trailer one day, Ernie offered him a hand.. Seeing both of them fighting trying to get the threads started I of course started laughing, I apologized laughing still and offered to do it for them. NOPE! And when we get done we're going to whip some young whippersnapper butt! They laughed about it also Lol! Good times out there. Now I have no one to talk to here at work but my phone :-D