Current Roster
Currently, I have 29 cows.
- 14 breeding cows
- 4 bull calves
- 11 Heifers (females yet to have calves)
Goals
My goal right now is to get to around 50 breeding cows. I will keep back the best of the heifers to replace the breeding cows. Eventually I will only have breeding cows that were born and raised on this land.
As for the bulls, I plan to keep a small bull herd (3-4) and to keep some of them back to neuter and to sell as meat.
There is a recommendation to not fully invest in cow-calf operations. The reason is that during a drought, you don’t get a good price for them. Instead, keep steer. You can sell steer at any time and get a good price for them, even in drought conditions. So when you need to scale back operations due to drought, you can keep the cows and sell the steer.
Even longer term, I want half of my animal units to be sheep and the other half to be cattle. On the 60 acres (plus the back 20) I should be able to get to 80 breeding cows total. So half of that is about 40 cattle, and 320 sheep.
Breeding Cows
Red is the “alpha”. It is clear she is in charge. She is a longhorn with a deep red coat. Her horns are big and wide, the biggest in my herd.
Red gives me good calves that are healthy. She is also a great mother.
Calves:
- #13 (bull) born March 12th, 2022
Blue is a friendly longhorn-corriente cross. When you first see her, you will wonder why we call her “Blue”. After a while, you’ll start to see her coat turn from white speckled with black to a deep blue color!
Blue sometimes gets a little grouchy and aggressive towards the other cows. She is also super-protective of her calves.
Calves:
- #28 (bull) born January 30th, 2024
- #16 (bull) born June 30th, 2022
- Untagged heifer born August 11th, 2021
Yellow is a longhorn with beautiful markings.
Calves:
- #1 (heifer) born September 10th, 2021
Speck is a beautiful white longhorn with some black spots. She has eyeliner around her eyes.
Calves:
- Untagged bull born in late 2022
- #10 (bull) born December 27th, 2021
Dusty is a beautiful white longhorn with some coloring. She has eyeliner around her eyes.
Calves:
- Untagged bull born August 12th, 2022
- #413 (possibly) born June of 2021.
Blackie is mostly Corriente but there is probably some longhorn in there somewhere. She has a black coat with white markings. Brownie and Blackie are my smallest cows. I want to get their genetics into my herd.
Calves:
- #20 (heifer) born in 2022
- Untagged heifer born August 11th, 2021
Brownie is also mostly Corriente, and has a brown coat with white markings. She is also my smallest cow.
Calves:
- Untagged heifer born October 30th, 2022
Untagged (black angus): Born August 2021. I am not sure who the dame or sire is. She gave birth to #30 (heifer) on February 2nd, 2024.
#6: Black angus. She’s shy but a trooper.
Calves:
- #15 (bull) born June 2nd, 2022
#10 has the slickest coat. She is half Angus and half Brahman, what people call “Brangus” down here. She has droopy ears and a lot of Brahman features.
Calves:
- #27 (bull) born January 30th, 2024
- #11 (heifer) born February 2nd, 2022
#19 is probably the second best performing cow after #21. She is a black Angus cross.
Calves:
- #29 (heifer) born January 31st, 2024
- #4 (heifer) born September 30th, 2021
#20 has an orange #20 tag and is the friendliest cow in the herd. She is also an Angus cross. Last year she was not well but she seems a lot better now. She’s not the best performing cow but she is not the worst either. She gave me good calves.
Calves:
- #12 (bull) born March 1st, 2022
#21 is an Angus cross. She is fat, but this is likely because her calf last year died after a few days. The calf was born right after the fire in the field, so likely it was due to stress and whatnot. Still, losing a calf so young is a bad sign.
Calves:
- #17 (bull) born July 15th, 2022
#24 is my skinniest cow. She is gaining weight as of now, though. She probably gave too much milk to her calf.
Calves:
- #26 (bull) born January 26th, 2024
- #14 (heifer) born May 24th, 2022
Metal Tag has a metal tag and is a black angus.
Calves:
- #6 (heifer) born October 26th, 2021
Untagged (black angus): Born August 2021. I am not sure who the dame or sire is.
Calves:
- #30 (heifer) on February 2nd, 2024.
Bull Calves
Bull calves can either be neutered and raised to weight for harvest, or can be kept as bulls for breeding. It takes 3 years for a bull calf to fully mature, but they are virile at about 1 year old.
2022 Bulls
White with Brown Speckles
White with Brown Speckles. This guy is growing horns. His sire is my neighbor’s beefmaster and his dam is Speck.
2024 Bulls
#26 was born to #24 on January 25th, 2024. He is black with lots of white spots on his head, legs, and ears.
#27 and #28 were born on the same day January 30th, 2024. #27’s dame is #10, the angus-brahman cross, and his sire is my neighbor’s Beefmaster bull. He is a light brown with a white nose and forehead.
#28 was born on the same day as #27, January 30th, 2024. His sire is my neighbor’s bull and his dame is Blue. He is almost entirely black except for his brisket has a white spot.
Heifers
Heifers are young cows that have yet to have a calf. I’d like to wait for them to be 2 years old before they give birth. That means they can breed at 14 months old, since they have a 10 month gestation.
The first calf can be really tough, so I need to make sure they get plenty of nutrition. New mothers that don’t take care of their calves are going to have to be sold.
- #413: I got #413 when I first bought my herd. I don’t remember who her dam or sire is. She was born in May of 2021.
- #1: Born September 10th, 2021 to Yellow. Don’t know who the sire is.
- #4 (missing tag): Born to #19 on September 30th, 2021. The tag ripped out of her ear.
- #6: Born October 26th, 2021 to metal tag. She is a gray color. Unsure who the sire is.
- #11: Born February 7th, 2022 to #10.
- #14: Born May 24th, 2022 to #24. Sire is a Charolais. She is mostly white or tan.
- Brown baldy: Born October 30th, 2022 to Brownie. Sire is the neighbor’s bull.
- White with brown spots was born in late 2022. The dam is Speck and the sire is the neighbor’s bull.
- #20 (yellow tag): Sire is my neighbor’s Beefmaster and the dam is Blackie. She’s a beautiful small black cow.
2024 Heifers
- #29 was born February 1st, 2024 to #19. Her sire is the neighbor’s bull. She is completely brown!
- #30 was born February 2nd, 2024 to an untagged calf born August 2021. This is her first calf.
Sold
I’ll try to keep a list of the cows I’ve sold here, and where they ended up.
Herefords and others
Around January of 2022, it became clear that most of my cows were not doing well. Since we didn’t get a good amount of rain that winter, it was also clear that things were not going to get better. I sold 12 cows and their 6 calves. The cows were herefords with some angus crosses. I kept the cows that were doing better than the others and the longhorns (since they were doing well.)
My neighbor that bought them said they weren’t in too bad of shape and they responded well to hay and feed. I am not sure what happened to the calves but I imagine some of them ended up in my freezer.
2024 Sales
#16 Blue’s Calf
The sire is my friend’s Charolais bull. The dam is Blue.
He used to have a tag #16, but it fell off.
He was born June 30th, 2022. I had the cows in my neighbor’s back 20 when he was born.
I really like the colors of this calf, so I might keep him just for that. He is also growing big fast which is a good thing. I hope he doesn’t get too big!
I sold him on April 6th, 2024 at Emory. He was 830 lbs and fetched a low price. He earned me about $1,000.
#18
Baldy, brown with white butt. This guy has eyeliner around his eyes. His sire is my neighbor’s beefmaster and the dam is Dusty. He was born August 15th, 2022.
I sold him on April 6th, 2024 at Emory. He was 700 lbs and fetched a low price. He earned me about $1,000.
Harvested
One of the reasons we keep cows is so that we can eat them. Naturally grown beef is a super food.
#15 Charolais Bull Calf
Sire is my friend’s Charolais bull and the dam is #6. He was born June 2nd, 2022. We harvested #15 on January 16th, 2024. The marbling was good despite there not being much extra fat.
Boneyard
Cows don’t live forever. I’ll list the cows that have died here.
Ugly
Ugly was my first cow that died. She was a Hereford and had horns that curled back into her face. True to her name, she was ugly. However, her previous owner said she gave the best calves.
She died in October of 2021, probably due to malnourishment either due to age or mismanagement. I didn’t check her teeth.
Orange
Orange was a beautiful longhorn with markings similar to Yellow. She died in 2022, probably due to old age / teeth wear. Her teeth were worn to little nubs. I kept her skull.
Other Cattle
These are some cows that make an appearance but I never owned them.
Neighbor’s Beefmaster “Red”
My neighbor keeps a few cows and a bull named Red. He was born in 2020.
My neighbor’s bull jumped the fence in summer of 2021 but neither of us minded having him with our cows. I brought him back in February of 2022, so that I can get my cows on the same schedule. He also jumped the fence in mid-April of 2023, a little earlier than I wanted but workable.
He’s sire to the calves born in 2022-2024.
