Post by Moose on Sept 1, 2015 20:45:22 GMT -5
Glad to have found the forum.
My wife, infant daughter and I are new to our small farm and as of this spring new to Dexter cattle. We have been on our farm for 4yrs now and have started with the basics, chickens, goats, sheep, pigs and finally made the leap into cattle after much research and some hands on training. My family comes from a farming background although I didn't grow up on the farm, my grandparents were cattle and grain farmers so I got my hands dirty on weekends and summer vacations. My wife was a life long city girl but self proclaimed hippy and wasn't afraid to get dirty and jump in head first either when she volunteered to help milk the neighbors Dexters whenever they went away.
in March the opportunity presented when we were selling our sheep to make a trade for an older(14yrs) registered Dexter cow and whatever calf she was due to have at any time. Lucky for us she soon calved a beautiful Red heifer which sweetened the deal for us and started our little herd. After some searching and a lot of pedigree checking we have picked out our future herd sire as well and he should arrive in a month or so once the breeder is confident he is ready to be weaned and in the meantime our cow is off being bred to another registered bull after alot of failed attempts at finding an AI technician.
Our herd......
Donna is a Dun cow and incredible producer who we hand milked 2 gallons a day with her calf on her full time. She has a lot of familiar names I've read on here in her pedigree such as Lucifer of Knotting, Woodmagic, Hiyu and Cornahir Outlaw.
Star is her Red Heifer who is looking more fantastic by the day and her sire again has many of the names listed above in his pedigree.
Finally we have our Black bull calf who is tentatively named Brutus , following his sire Bob and Grandsire Bruce. His dam is a Red cow from heavy milking lines however his sire greatly improves beef quality as we saw from other offspring still on the farm....18 month old strictly grass fed steers that looked as thick as some 2yr old bulls I've seen.
Its a small herd but we think a great start and hope to expand with more quality animals in the near future.
My wife, infant daughter and I are new to our small farm and as of this spring new to Dexter cattle. We have been on our farm for 4yrs now and have started with the basics, chickens, goats, sheep, pigs and finally made the leap into cattle after much research and some hands on training. My family comes from a farming background although I didn't grow up on the farm, my grandparents were cattle and grain farmers so I got my hands dirty on weekends and summer vacations. My wife was a life long city girl but self proclaimed hippy and wasn't afraid to get dirty and jump in head first either when she volunteered to help milk the neighbors Dexters whenever they went away.
in March the opportunity presented when we were selling our sheep to make a trade for an older(14yrs) registered Dexter cow and whatever calf she was due to have at any time. Lucky for us she soon calved a beautiful Red heifer which sweetened the deal for us and started our little herd. After some searching and a lot of pedigree checking we have picked out our future herd sire as well and he should arrive in a month or so once the breeder is confident he is ready to be weaned and in the meantime our cow is off being bred to another registered bull after alot of failed attempts at finding an AI technician.
Our herd......
Donna is a Dun cow and incredible producer who we hand milked 2 gallons a day with her calf on her full time. She has a lot of familiar names I've read on here in her pedigree such as Lucifer of Knotting, Woodmagic, Hiyu and Cornahir Outlaw.
Star is her Red Heifer who is looking more fantastic by the day and her sire again has many of the names listed above in his pedigree.
Finally we have our Black bull calf who is tentatively named Brutus , following his sire Bob and Grandsire Bruce. His dam is a Red cow from heavy milking lines however his sire greatly improves beef quality as we saw from other offspring still on the farm....18 month old strictly grass fed steers that looked as thick as some 2yr old bulls I've seen.
Its a small herd but we think a great start and hope to expand with more quality animals in the near future.