Friday, May 18, 2012

Population explosion

Each morning when I look out the front door, this is what greets me:  the cows have decided they should spend their nights up here close to my house.  If you are a city dweller who comes to visit me, you will notice the odor of cow poop in the air; it probably is offensive to you, but I scarcely ever notice it or think about it.  I keep intending to lock the cows out of the little lot so they will poop a little farther away, but it just doesn't seem worth the effort.  Personally, I could probably bed down next to a feed lot and sleep peacefully.  Visitors may have to use that trick I've read about in books, where people who work with decaying bodies (like CSI folks, and morgue workers) rub a little Vicks under their noses.  
But I digress.  
I was at the kitchen sink looking out on this sight this morning and suddenly realized that if the three females, all of whom have been exposed to a bull, are pregnant, my herd is going to practically double this fall and winter!  
Jody, on the left, was bred Sunday.  Babe, lying down on the right, was bred in December.  And Bonnie, standing, was (we hope) bred in February.  Max, the lone male, will leave us in August for that big meat locker in the sky.  I was thinking about seeing if I could trade him for a Jersey heifer, but what on earth do I need another animal for?  Do we have enough pasture for seven cows?  
We have forty-three acres.  Half of it is woods and deep ravines, with very little for an animal to graze.  With two horses and seven cows, I think our pitiful pasture would be severely over-grazed.  
We'll see how this all pans out.

9 comments:

  1. can a bull impregnate his mom or sister, or cows don't do that. this is not a joke question, I have no idea.

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  2. They would do it in a heartbeat, Meesha. Line-breeding and inbreeding are often used to enhance certain traits. Of course, sometimes it causes undesirable traits to surface, as well.

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  3. Oh, and Max can't do anything because we made him a steer shortly after birth.

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  4. learn something every day :-)

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  5. Yeah, pastures can get depleted. We have a really good 20 acre brome pasture that gets 100# of Nitrogen each spring but 12 horses at too many we found out last year. We harvest 35 large round bales and then it was really slow to come back because of over grazing.
    Marilyn got her sweet potatoes in and she just takes long soaker hoses and cuts them to the lengths she wants and put new quick tach couplers on them. One snaking thru the onions, tomatoes, sweet potatoes,and so on.
    We need rain too.

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  6. 43 acres! It sounds like heaven!!!!
    I would much rather reside near cows than near my ROTTEN neighbors!!!

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  7. I wouldn't be bothered by the smell, even kinda like it. But I don't like the smell of a feed lot - and I think it's the feed, not the cows.

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  8. YOU GOT YOU A NICE LITTLE HERD ACTION GOING ON MRS DONNA...
    I LOVE IT.. SMELLS AND ALL.

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  9. That smell is what I grew up being told by my dad, is the smell of money! LOL :)

    I don't mind cow manure, but pig manure and well pigs in general...they are a wretched smell.

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