Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I found Dexter Cattle on the Net and they seem to have some good charateristics for a small peice of property.

I spoke with a Cattelman in Mo that told me their small stature was a problem for feed lots and they didn't like them because they were constantly getting crushed by the bigger cows.

Any info you could add would be apprecialted.

<TABLE width="100%" border=1><TBODY><TR><TD>http://www.dextercattle.org/graphics/Sally's-Kids.jpg</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>


Thanks

E-A

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

What are your plans for the cattle?

For personal home use or selling to niche markets they probably work well...

I know someone in OK who raises Dexters(I think,not sure.) and sells them to the yuppies in OKC for $$$...farm raised,grass fed,blah blah blah...

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

They seem perfect for Yuppies.

Lower fat smaller portions.

Thanks

E-A

Come to think of it---sounds like I could use lower fat and smaller portions HAHAHAHAH

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Dexter's are definately a breed that you DO NOT sell at an auction or to a feedlot. You raise them and sell them to private parties or slaughter them yourself.

One nice thing about smaller breeds, such as Dexter, is that they weight less and can be kept on smaller lots. They eat less, leave less fertilizer behind, and compact the ground less.

I don't have Dexter's, but I do have mini herefords. I wanted to buy some from a private party, but they wanted a lot more than I can afford. Luckily I accidently found some at an auction for a decent price. Unfortunately they are as wild as can be. For some reason I never luck out and get tame animals. :bawling:

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Dexter's are definately a breed that you DO NOT sell at an auction or to a feedlot. You raise them and sell them to private parties or slaughter them yourself.

One nice thing about smaller breeds, such as Dexter, is that they weight less and can be kept on smaller lots. They eat less, leave less fertilizer behind, and compact the ground less.

I don't have Dexter's, but I do have mini herefords. I wanted to buy some from a private party, but they wanted a lot more than I can afford. Luckily I accidently found some at an auction for a decent price. Unfortunately they are as wild as can be. For some reason I never luck out and get tame animals. :bawling:

My best advise is to check and double check your fences and gate BEFORE you bring the animals home. My two cute little 235 pound calves knocked over a gate and ran down the road for miles with me chasing them. I finally abandoned them in a gully that belonged to a neighbor where I was sure that they would hang out for months since there was no way for me to get them out. There was plenty of food and water so I assumed that they would be safe until I could figure out what to do.:MIA:

Crazy cows showed up the next morning. One was hit by a car right outside the gate she knocked over , and kept on running. (To this day she is perfectally fine. ) A police officer showed up and got them into the pasture and shut the gate. She then charged the gate and knocked the police officer down.

At the news that there was a rampaging herd of cows attacking cars and police officers, 4 new cop cars showed up with 1/2 dozen more officers to round up this vicious herd. (Remember these are 235 pound calves.) Luckily the neighbors cows were balling for their feed, and my little calves sought them out in the search for their mommies. They walked right into the gate and were locked up.

Then I just had to get the two cute little monsters over to my farm. Since they were just over the fence, we installed a new gate. Then we got all the neigbors cows to come over. Then I chased my cows for 2 hours convincing them to come home.

The moral of this story is ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THAT YOU LOCKED YOUR GATES BEFORE YOU BRING LIVESTOCK HOME!!! With my goats, all I have to do is yell at them and they usually come home. (Unless they are eating blackberries in which case I have to drag them back.) My other cows come running for snacks, these two feral beasts are another story.

But they are so pretty standing out in the pasture, giving me the look of death.:Surrender:

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Cute and funny story Melody.....though the reality was probably a nightmare.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I have two Dexter heifers.

I have two Dexter steers in the freezer.

They are definitely easy keepers, mild mannered, intelligent.

My plan is to get one of the heifers bred ( I'll probably go AI until I can geta bull ) for fall calving, and get the other one bred for spring calving. I would like to milk them. What attracted me to Dexters was their size. A steer willyield 4-500 lbs. of beef, not a thousand. A cow is only supposed to yield a gallon or maybe a gallon and a half a day of milk. That's still a lot, but not 4 plus gallons a day.

Right now, I feed my two unbred heifers a single bale of hay, and a coffe can of sweet feed a day. The sweet feed is mostly just so I can get up close to the animals every day, and get them used to my presence. When I feed it, I make a point of getting close up and petting them. I did have them on pasture, but the pasture had way too much clover, and they were getting bloated. I have seeded a new pasture for them for next year that is strictly grass. A reasonable stocking rate here (southern New England with plenty of rain) is a Dexter per half acre, less if you graze rotationally.

Plus they are real pretty!

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

If you are concerned with personal use as opposed to making money selling them, unregistered Dexters sell for a lot less than registered ones.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Lackluster solved the problem of rampaging wild cows.

He keeps them in the freezer.:4_1_72:

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

If you want an animal that is easy to raise get into llamas. Very healthy, 96% live birth rate. Don't need good forage as they are browsers like deer. Digestive system is extremely efficient. Hide makes good leather and they can provide descent quality wool. Males and females can be picked up real cheap. Meat is similar to elk.

They don't handle hot climates well, but are good down to -20 with limited cover.

sb

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I've thought of these as well as goats and dexter cows. I've had goats, very easy to care for, feed, house, and butcher, good eating (like tender deer only not gamy. Also good reproducers.

Dexters do have the issue of: "It also has been their biggest genetic disadvantage: Dexters, especially the smaller ones, are prone to a genetic disorder which occasionally causes cows to give birth to stillborn "bulldog calves," with deformed faces." source

Llamas, they might work for me, housing would be a bit of a problem but I do have enough land to accommodate a small heard. How hard are they to keep fenced in? What about milk, maybe that sound silly, but is it an option?

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

:15_1_70v:

If the fence keeps a goat in it'll keep a llama in. Milk is not really an option. At least I've never heard of it. The males do make excellent guard animals for sheep. They are very protective and have fighting teeth. They have extremely good eyesight and can kill a coyote.
In South America they are used primarily for meat and pack animals. Being animals of peasants they have been bred to be very healthy. In Peru they have finally realized that instead of grazing cattle(which the Spanish introduced) in the high Andes scrub they have started grazing llamas again and they get much more meat per acre.

I wish a had a few more acres. I would love to get back into some animals for meat. I might still. Now that you've brought this up I might do this. Thank,,I think..

Oh, they are induced ovulaters like rabbits and cats, so you can breed them anytime you want.

s

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Speaking of cattle, I was over at the in-laws tonight and heard a weird story.

They arranged to have two cows(bulls) graze their property last summer to keep the grass under control. So the guy delivers the two, and says "they are a little bloody because they were just castrated, but don't worry, they are fine."

So they are unloaded the bulls and they tromp off. The next day they find one of the poor beasts dead. Apparently it bled to death because the owner sniped the animal past a certain age ( like one year or something). Plain old quick and dirty castration works fine as long as the bull is young enough.

The other bull apparently suffered from PTSD and was just mean for the rest of the time they had it.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

The Dexters sound interesting. Ditto llamas. I'm completely sold on brown swiss because they were bred to eat thin apline grass and hay, no grain, and throw beefy calves and give lots of milk and cream. For hundreds of years to be registered they had to pass the milk and butter production on thin alpine grass test, the beefy calf test, and the draft animal test. It is made for the small holder. Black aussie hens are like that. Lay the most eggs of any breed, but have big nice birds for eating, and forage well. They do need some grain because an egg a day is a lot to lay, and they do.

A gallon a day of milk is plenty, if milk is all you want, but not if you want butter. You can fatten hogs or feed your hens any clabbered buttermilk instead of grain for their extra protein and calcium, or trade with some of your milk.

Herd dogs are as valuable now as they were to our great grandparents. We are going to get the original farm collie before the kennel clubs ruined them soon. They made the stupid pretty collies and the overzealous border collie out of dogs with personalities like lassie of yore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Shepherd

They survived among hillbillies.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Idiots! There are bloodless castrators available that simply crush all the bulls bull parts so that there is no blood. What a waste.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Hey!

We're on a wating list for an Eenglish shepherd pup! They sound like great dogs.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

[QUOTE=electric-amish;1417291]I found Dexter Cattle on the Net and they seem to have some good charateristics for a small peice of property.

Hello, small frame cattle are ok for small pieces of property, but your input for feed vs your output on beef is not good, you need to be looking at a bread of cattle that will grow fast and put on weight quickly if you plan on getting the most meat for your input of food.
In all honestly your best bet would be goats.
Yea...I know that is not the general mind set, espiacily for some one growing up in the cattle business, but if you do some research about goats you will find they are your best calorie to pound of meat resource.
around here I am seeing a lot more old time cattle people moving towards goats. I have gone to the goat auction at the sale barn and picked up weened kids, turned them out for a month and taken them back to the auction and doubled my money.
better that what you can do on a CD at the local bank for sure, the only problem is they are real bastards to keep in a fenced in area, and they love the wifes roses............
anyway
do a little research for your self and you may find that is something to consider

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

+1 on Brown Swiss. From what I understand, they are a true "all purpose" breed. There is a Brown Swiss Association close to where I live.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Don't ever try to raise the calves on a bottle, they are the dumbest of all the breeds. I use to raise up bull calves because you could get the day olds for $25.00 or sometimes free/ You have to get the colostrum if you want them to do well/ If you have a springer come fresh you can freeze the colostrum from the first few days of milking for raising calves at a later date. You just have to get them some not a lot so a little will do a few calves. We would put three calves on one fresh Holstein and then pull em off and put two more on her while she was eating In a stanchion. She was milking 60 lbs though and that was very good for a non hormone milchow. She raised a lot of calves over the years but as far as the stupid ass brown swiss you were better off putting the milk or milk replacer into a enema bag and shoving the tube down it's throat and squeezing the bag. Dumbest animal ever. Stupid! I have seen the reject their own mother. Idiots! I still get pissed just thinking about it. I know nothing of the Dexter's. We kept Charlets, White Face and raised springers for the dairies. We always used a Angus bull or had the vet come with some proving seed that would throw small calves.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I'd go with some Maine Anjou or Shorthorns and barter off the extra meat for anything else you may need. I would also feed them corn or grass silage in the winter depending on your area. Hay is so high now people around here are trying to give away good horses. And forget Alfalfa now, balls!
Supplement with crude molasses. I used to buy good Timothy grass hay for $1.50 a bail. Now you can't even get any and the dairies are only feeding pea hay and silage. Pea hay is not what you want to feed beef with, it's too hot and full of dirt. High protein burns the cows up in a few years but they are milking over a 100 pounds out of some of these hormone ladies and it's all about the moolah$
If you are living in the deep woods and have a lot of brush you want gone the highlanders can handle all the abuse you can throw at them

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Coyotes, Wolves Bears even Sasquach don't intimidate these guys.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I raise baby calves on goat milk. A decent milk goat will raise one calf at a time, a great goat will raise two. Of course, I do feed them with a bottle. Usually it takes a day or two to get the calf to drink their bottle by hanging it up, till then I have to stick the nipple in their mouth. Baby goats are usually much smarter, since all the sense hasn't been bred out of them. (But I did have an incredibly stupid one last year that would never learn to drink out of the bucket and had to be hand fed every time.)

One of the reason why some people have such a hard time with calves is that they feed them milk replacer. The stuff taste horrible, to people and calves. (I did a comparison with goat milk once to see what was the difference.) Read the directions, soybean meal, whey, etc. It's a starvation diet for calves that encourages them to start eating solid food before they die. Especially when they get scours from the fake food and they die of dehydration.

If you have to raise a calf on milk replacers, see if you can find the stuff made with real milk, no soybeans! Also, make sure you buy or be prepared to make some cow version of gatorade for when they get scours. (Basically a little salt, baking powder, sugar, and lots water.)

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I am talking about the Brown Swiss calves. You will not get them to take a bottle 99.9% of the time. They are the stupidest animal ever made.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Sasquash

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa

E-A

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I guess that I'm lucky not to have tried to raise brown swiss. So far I've only done holstein, angus, herford, and some crosses. Would you blame a brown swiss calf who had a wonderful mother giving it sweet tasting real milk for refusing powdered crap in a bottle? I would be stubborn as well.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Hey, I am just stating my experience with them and I have had plenty. All the calves you mentioned are easy enough to raise off a bottle though you do not usually do not get Herefords day old unless they are half Holstein Guernsey Jersey or some other milking breed. They do that because they throw a smaller calf for the heifers but usually they are Angus.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

Some breeds, such as holsteins, are easy to get. The cow has to calf inorder to give milk, so there are lots of little bull calves available. It's possible thought to get any breed as a bottle baby. If the mother dies, is seperated from, or can't feed her baby then the calf gets sold. Sometimes at the local auction they will seperate cow/calf pairs if no-one will bid on the pair. (Beware getting a calf recently seperated from their mother. I've heard they 'go to pieces' looking for their mother and have a hard time accepting a bottle.)

I'm just glad that I only rasie calves in the summer. Sure, milking the goats and feeding the calves are on top of my already over worked day. But, I'd rather not get out of a nice warm bed and go outside in the dark and feed a calf in frozen temperatures. The calves never do as well and I get to have frozen fingers and toes.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I really enjoyed your story, Melody. Sounds so much like something that would happen around here. May I ask where you farm? Great to have another farm chic around here.

We raise mostly holstein around here. We do use milk replacer, and have good luck... can't remember what kind, but it is a pretty good one. Don't have any around right now, but we were just discussing whether to get more calves, or some feeders this time. Being winter, I'm hoping for the feeders. I HATE feeding calves in the cold! Never fails when we get new calves in, we get a snowstorm.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

I'm in the socialist state of Oregon, in the Willamette valley. So my idea of a huge snowstorm is a few inches. If we get two inches everything shuts down. All schools are closed, the weatherman tells everyone to stay home unless we absoulutely have go somewhere, and lots of cars end of in the ditches.

The wild calves are doing pretty good now. They refuse to come into the barn to sleep, preferring to sit out in the rain all night. Just so they can be near the fence and thus near the neighbors cows. They still hate me unfortunately. I stepped in the pasture the other day and they ran all the way to the neighbors fence and mooed for help. But at least they have learned to like the tractor. It brings fun things to them like apples and pumpkins.

They've been eating away, gaining weight off the pasture and apples. You't never known that one of them survived getting hit by a car. Hopefully, someday they will realize that this is home. The goats have adopted them, so hopefully the goats will talk some sense into them.

Based on the cow prices in my area, now is definately a time to buy if you have the feed. Prices for cows are horrendously low right now, and feed prices are high. Luckily, I have hay and good pasture so I could afford to buy a few this year. (Grand total of 5 including a Jersey Heifer.) At one auction, which I foolishly didn't pick up a bidder number, I saw healthy Weaned holstein steers that were eating hay and grain that went for $12.50. That's not a typo they went for twelve dollars and fifty cents. Nobody wanted them, or rather, nobody had the hay and grain to feed them through the winter. At the same auction I saw chickens go fo $14 and rabbits go for up to $16. It was like the twilight zone.

Re: Cattle question for the GIMers
 

$12.50? Wow... I mean, really, wow... Wish I were closer! I'd snatch them up quickly if they looked healthy. The prices here aren't quite that fantastic. Unfortunately, the price of the finished ones isn't fantastic, either. Have to get the good deals in order to turn a profit on them.

Glad the wild ones are doing okay. I know it would really be horrible, but there are times that I wish some of mine were afraid of me. There are some pretty big pests in the lot. We used to have one that I called my puppy, because he would follow you around the lot.