Thursday, October 06, 2016

A practical solution to the cattle situation around here

I miss having cows.  It's nothing I shed tears about, but I do miss interacting with cows, and I think I have found a sensible solution.

There will be no more milk cows here, as much as I love milking and all that goes with it.  Every time I think I'll get another Jersey, Dona Smith comes to mind.  She is one of the best friends I ever had.  She and Bud, her husband, would have driven anywhere, done anything, to help us if we needed it (one time when Cliff was out of a job, they offered us the loan of a substantial amount of money; of course, we declined).  Bud has passed on now, and Dona is in a nursing home.  She had a stroke years ago, which may be what caused her sometime dementia; I've only been to visit her twice over all these years, which tells you what kind of lousy friend I am.  On the first visit we had a good chat, but she wasn't quite "with it".  For instance, she told me that she was planning to buy some Jersey cows (she and Bud kept a small dairy herd at one time). She was going to get out there and milk again!  Now the woman was, and is, wheel-chair bound.  So she obviously didn't realize the impossibility of her milking cows... or keeping them at a nursing home.  

The second time I went, the old Dona was back and we had a nice, sensible  conversation.  

So every time I think I might get another Jersey cow, I remember how sad it was to see Dona, sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home, planning to buy some cows, and I remind myself that these days I just don't take care of things, or pay enough attention to a cow's cycles and condition, to have a cow.  

Our supply of ground beef in the freezer is dwindling fast.  There are plenty of local farmers who would sell us half a beef, but by the time you pay for the beef and then pay for butchering, you are out quite a chunk of change.  So the wheels in my head began to turn.

The last time I checked, the dairy at Higginsville was selling Holstein bull calves at a very reasonable price.  If those prices are still low when I call them (after we go on a bus trip with our tractor club), I think I will buy a calf.  This will give me a bovine friend to enjoy and bottle-feed, and in a year we can have him butchered to put ground beef in our freezer... city folks will shudder at this statement, but country folks understand.  I will be bottle-feeding him with milk replacer for three months, then buying some grain for awhile; but when spring comes, we can turn him out in the pasture and let him grow.  We'll butcher him, probably, by the time he's a year old.

The thought of buying ground beef at the grocery store scares me, because it doesn't smell and taste like what we raise.  

In dealing with a steer, there won't be any worry about neighboring bulls, or cows that come in heat at too young an age.  

I hope it's as easy as it seems in the telling.

6 comments:

  1. Will you raise one for me too? I'd buy the calf, pay for the food, and even pay you raising salary! I just want a freezer full of beef.

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  2. Sure wish I had the fence and the guts to raise a calf for dinner next year ;-) We raised them when I was a kid, but now I buy it all in the store and I agree with you, It scares the bajeebers out of me to think what we are eating. yikes! Wendy

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  3. It is still a lot of work for you but hopefully will be worth it. It's been a long time since I had home grown beef so I've become used to the store bought. However there is a difference in where you buy it. I hope it goes they way you plan it.

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  4. I own McDonalds stock, so my allegiance is there(Says the coward who could not butcher a calf. I most probably would also not [DEFINITELY NOT] be able to care for one well enough for a year, either). So the organic store-sold beef out there is not really considered a fairly safe bet?

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  5. Donna, I think at certain times of the year you get cow fever!!! I remember
    Patsy got chicken fever in late winter and would get those chicken catalogs.
    She'd end up ordering a new type. Donna there is no cure. You will just
    Have to live with it!

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  6. Nancy, there are so many horses living here that we'll be lucky to have enough pasture for one cow. I thought about getting two just so they'd have company, but it really isn't practical. Sister-Three, you are right. Mary, I'm not afraid of any beef in the store (although I try not to think too much about the way it's processed). It just doesn't taste good to me, or smell right.

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