Last year's calves

Abby (front) and Asher, growing up.

Lessons learned

I should start back into my blogging season by following up with all the trouble caused by our friend Dan.  First, I ignored my better judgement and did NOT quarantine Dan before adding him to my herd.  He was so young and friendless after leaving his family and enduring the trauma of the sale barn...  I just wanted him to have the safety of the group.  I may have had good intentions, but it was the wrong call.  Though fit and strong when he left his home farm (2 miles from here), he contracted a "shipping pneumonia" from his companions at the auction.  Within the week he had spread the disease to both of my other precious calves!  My first indication that something was wrong was when Abby, a normally vivacious heifer was spending a little more time laying down with her ears drooping.  I spend a bizarre amount of time watching my animals, so I noticed that Abby was not quite herself one Sunday evening.  A sheepish call to a neighbor with these non-specific symptoms turned out to be just what was needed.  He took me seriously, and by the time he came over with a bottle of penicillin, she was starting to cough.  Calves can succumb quickly and Abby had the worst case between Dan, her brother and herself.  I would hate to have lost her.  All three were treated by the vet the next morning and Abby again the day after.  I never use any sub-therapeutic antibiotics in my animals, but I'm also not shy about making them well as fast as I can with (nearly) any method at my disposal.  Everyone recovered and is none the worse, but all of this could have been avoided by better management decisions.  Most health problems are due at least in part to management problems, but the trick is to know what those are before hindsight makes them clear.

Welcome, Dan!

Dan, our newest addition

I wasn't planning to add any more critters, but when I visited a neighbor that has a few White Park cows, he had a little steer that he was willing to sell.  I put my name on him, but my neighbor and I got our signals crossed and he took the steer to the sale barn!  Didn't I just say I would not buy any animals there?  Anyway, I didn't want this boy to go to waste on someone who wouldn't appreciate him.  With the general bias towards black cows in our region, I bought Dan for a bargain.  Still, I would gladly have paid more to avoid subjecting him to the stress and disease of the sale barn. 

2011 Calf photos

Abby (left) and Asher playing King of the Hill

Asher, 2 months old

Our herd is now down to Mary and her heifer calf, Abby, Martha, and her steer calf, Asher, and yearling steers, Abe and Jake.  Agnes is now in the freezer and Catalina went to a new home where she will live out her life as a pet.  The irony of our new smaller herd is that we may have the best grass in the neighborhood this year with the intense heat.  (Asher is standing in a patch of weeds above, though.)  We've had a month of 100 degree days now and the main staples for cattle grazing, brome and fescue, are nearly devoid of nutrition as a result.  Our native grasses are thriving in spite of the heat and my biggest pasture management problem is that I don't have enough mouths to eat the grass down to keep its quality through the fall and winter!  My neighbor is thinking of feeding hay soon, but I have offered to host his herd of 20 cow/calf pairs here until we get some rain.  This same neighbor keeps me supplied with good hay, so I'll be happy if he takes me up on it.

Censored: Cow calving photos

Scott wasn't sure I needed to put these front and center, so for those of you who want to see, you can open a separate page from the tab above...

Two new experiences for me, one for Agnes

Well, today was the day I loaded up Agnes in my neighbors' trailer for a one-way ride to Santa Fe Trail Meats.  After reading and rereading everything I had on grass finishing cattle, I concluded that, in spite of being a big-framed girl, at 26 months Agnes looked as good as any grain finished heifer would.  She was full in the brisket, round in the hips, and flat as a board across her broad back.  By my estimation, she'd register a frame score of 8 (out of 9 for beef cattle): too fat to breed well, but perfect for the butcher.  I asked the USDA inspector at the abattoir to grade her for me, to see where she ranks (prime, choice, select, standard).  I'm expecting choice, as the rules for prime are biased against the yellow (high beta-carotene) fat of grass fed animals. 


I've taken hogs to this butcher for the last two years.  We back the trailer up to the chute and in they go through the blue door and out they come in frozen packages.  This time, when I called to schedule Agnes, I asked if it was permitted to watch the process.  They agreed to let me in, but with their tight schedule, the beeves I watched were not my own.  This was more than OK by me.  Mostly, I wanted to see how the animals were treated behind the blue door, and how they were converted from walking animal to hanging halves.  This little facility is just 14 miles down the road from Bluestem Farm.  The owner and head butcher answered my questions while he and two others did the bulk of the work.  What impressed me was the cleanliness of the operation.  Not to say it was without gore, but every stage was rinsed down with copious amounts of water.  Everything was calm, "clean" and efficient.  An on site USDA inspector checked the livers, hearts, lungs, teeth, and glands for health and age before the newly hanging halves went to the cooler.

I was still in a cow mood that afternoon, so I came back into Overbrook, KS for the cattle auction next door to my butcher.  I didn't intend to buy anything from this or any sale barn, but thought it would be good for my education to see what animals were available and what the buyers were looking for in their stock.  There were about 30 men, a few kids, and fewer women in the audience when I got there.  The first thing you notice is the stink.  Now I had just come from the butcher which smelled like cold meat, and when I clean my barn it smells like manure, but this was something more foul.  Cattle of all ages, sexes, sizes, and conditions are herded through a maze of gates out onto large pen built over a livestock scale that rocked a little as they skittered around looking for an exit.  Animals were presented in ones or groups for bidding by the "hundred weight."  All of the employees seemed to have the same work ethic; if they could clang it, bang it, or beat it with a stick, they did.  For reasons that I can't fathom, cattle that were too calm in the ring were shooed, swatted and scared until they were sufficiently wild for their two minutes of show time.  It's spring time in Kansas.  We've had plenty of rain.  There is grass everywhere.  How then, could some of these cows have become so emaciated?  Were they sick or abused?  There were plenty of good looking animals that fetched prices between $130 and $140 per hundred weight.  The sick cows brought $44 per hundred weight.  Everything sold.  Who do you suppose is eating those poor cows?

Abby and Asher

Mary and Martha had a lovely matched pair of calves on the 27th and 28th of May.  Abby, behind, is Mary's second calf and a definate keeper.  She has nice black points and four well-spaced teats, traits that we can attribute to her sire.  Asher, Martha's first born, is a real live-wire with a great personality.  Unfortunatly, he has six teats like his mother which, in my mind, disqualifies him as a future herd sire to sell.  He's been banded and will stay with the herd until he's ready to butcher. 

Getting ready for baby

JWest's Tom Sawyer, the dad

Mary's normally discrete backside is now bulging with the imminent arrival of her new calf.  With this sign, called "springing" in farmer lingo, I'm checking her every several hours for further signs of labor.  Her bag is full and the teats are getting tight with new milk.  Her due date is tomorrow, and I expect she'll be right on time.

All this vigilance is to make up for missing both calvings last year.  The only thing keeping me from spending tonight in the barn is that we will likely have rough weather and we may all be sleeping in the basement instead. 

Martha, my heifer, is due to calve on June 3.

(P.S. Scott found my photo of Mary's pregnant butt too offensive for general audiences, so I deleted it.  I will include it with any birth photos on a separate page.)

Pasture management

Mary, her yearling calf, Abe, and Catalina

I let my front paddock become overgrazed last year while we built fences, but it is recovering nicely with the winter and spring rest.  Though this is intended to be my legume-rich pig pasture for the summer, there was so much clover that I had to call in the cows to harvest it.  I held the six of them on this two acre plot for about five days.  Then, cattle were out and pigs again had access to the field. 

Now that all the doctoring is done for a while, I am moving the pigs into their summer cottages and out of the barn stalls where they have slept since moving to Bluestem Farm.  These will be cleaned up and freshened for the next round of babies- calves!

Mary and Martha are both due to deliver in the next few weeks, so they are quarantined in the west paddock to be near the house and barn.  I want the stalls ready in the rare case that they need birth assistance.

I was pretty confident that Mary had weaned Abe a few months back, and that was confirmed when I shut the mother in away from him.  They can still visit through the fence, but there was no bawling at all.  With the impressive store of fat that Mary has accumulated from the spring grass, I was sure that her body was handling the pregnancy well even without artificially weaning her first calf.  

Happy Valentine's Day

Here's our kitten, Mark, getting some love from Abe and Mary.  He seems to have a fascination with his big friends and will cry until they rub him all over with cow snot.  He comes away crusty, but happy. 

Snow and more snow

There are only a few gates that I can either open or shut around our permanent snow drifts.  Most of the paddock gates are open so my herd has access to the larger pasture.  When it's cold they are happy to huddle around the hay bale or duck into the barn, but it warmed up to a sunny 20 degrees today, and I was glad to see Mary lead the rest out for a romp in the snow.  It's not healthy for cows to be confined in a small lot for long, though I think it's excusable when the ground is frozen.  I may put the next bale out in the pasture when the weather warms up.

I love to see the young ones kicking up their heels and getting some exercise.  I was also pleased to see that Catalina, my new heifer stayed with the group when they went exploring.  When Jake was new and Molly (my milk cow, now sold) was in charge, the herd was always trying to ditch him in the tall grass.

More about Galloways

Belted Galloways on pasture

Galloway cattle are noticeably more furry than other breeds except Highlanders.  They do well in cold weather without needing to put on a thick layer of fat for warmth.  The breed is known for it's ability to grow well on grass alone.  Galloways come in black, red, or dun.  They can be belted or, more commonly, solid. 

Example of a white Galloway

A more unusual pattern for Galloway cattle is white with black points.  This similarity with White Parks has led to speculation that there may be some Galloway blood in the formation of the American Brisish White Park genetics.  I'm a big fan of the white color pattern, and from the start, Galloways were in the running for my foundation stock at Bluestem Farm. 

Catalina at Bluestem Farm

Catalina, my new half-belted Galloway (that is she is a beltie that only shows the belt on her left side) will be bred this summer to the same White Park bulls as the rest of the herd.  In a generation or two, I hope to see some white, black-pointed offspring from her, too.

Farm in a box

My round trip through the Missouri Ozarks to pick up hogs and heifers went smoothly- a great consolation to Scott after my dicey truck-stock trailer-ice-highway incident last winter in Iowa. 

I met Tyke, the hog breeder, in the little Missouri town of El Dorado Springs to transfer the stock from his trailer to mine.  I had visions of stout hogs running wild in the Pamida parking lot, but to my surprise, both boar and sow just stepped daintily from one trailer to the other and settled in for the ride.  The registered Guinea Hog boar, Buttercup, probably earned his name as a two-pound piglet, but at over 200 lbs now, he isn't worried about being teased.  The unnamed sow, I christened Trudy, after a former relation of my husband's. 

Heifers did not load so smoothly.  The farm didn't have adequate loading facilities, so we had to first select the two heifers I wanted and then run the rest of the herd out of the corral.  Then, the two lonely heifers had to be convinced to mount the trailer of their own accord.  After some graceless chasing, one heifer decided to try the trailer.  With little stress, I closed the door and secured her in the front compartment.  The second heifer was in a little panic when she tangeled in a mess of scrap wire that had been left in the corral.  With wire around her neck and legs, she managed to shake free, but by that time she was cut around her mouth and bleeding.  In her terror she started charging at everyone, especially Larry, who retaliated by swinging a board to smack her whenever she got close. 

The only way to treat the heifer was to let her settle herself and find the trailer on her own.  Larry had another idea.  He loaded up an air pistol with bee-bees and started shooting at her from outside the fence.  She didn't understand what he wanted her to do, but she sure knew that he was her enemy.  I was crouching behind the trailer door, in part to swing it shut if she happened to step in, but also to keep from being pinged with bee-bees, as the heifer was now between Larry and me.  When started to load the second clip, I called halt and took my one heifer home.  This wasn't the only sign of poor management that I saw there, but it is by far enough. 

My little yearling, half-belt heifer still calls for her mother some, but the herd has taken her as one of their own.  I think she will continue to gentle up with good management.  I've named her Catalina.

Light reading and Mob grazing

Everyone writing for the Stockman Grass Farmer  magazine seems to have read this book, so I picked up a used copy on line and read it this weekend.  It is about four parts light travel log and one part raising good beef.

Schatzker is a Canadian who visited seven beef-obsessed countries to conclude that the best flavor is produces by grass-fed and grass-finished heifers and steers about three years old.  Another revelation of his was that marbling (the only qualification needed for USDA Prime certification) is not directly related to either taste or tenderness. 

Tender animals live on grass in a low stress environment and are slaughtered while "on the gain."  Usually this means waiting until animals are full grown (at about two years) before fattening them on grass.  Spring is the easiest time to accomplish this, though far better graziers than I have managed to use summer and winter annuals to finish grass-fed beeves year round. 

The best tool available to the grass-finisher is rotational grazing.  Called "mob grazing" by its practitioners, the goal is to use extremely high-density stocking rates to harvest a small section of pasture in a single day.  Cows are moved to a new pasture every afternoon to take advantage of the greater sugar available in grass that has been soaking up sunlight all morning.

This all sounds great in theory, but it requires a dizzying amount of fencing and water infrastructure to have the 21 separate paddocks that would allow each to have a three week rest to regrow.  Most operations use temporary electric fencing.  In my experience all electric fencing is temporary, since the cows wander through it as their leisure.  If that is the route for me, I need a stronger charger at least.

Hanging out with the cows

Mary leading the pack as usual

The herd tromped out to greet me as I returned to the barn after a walk in the snowy pasture.  Cows are curious and affectionate by nature and it's a pleasure to spend time with them.  Agnes was a little camera shy at first, but she lightened up after a while.  I wonder if her
skittishness is due to a lack of socialization as a calf, or if it is a genetic trait that she'll pass on to her offspring.  I'm still leaning toward breeding her soon for a fall calf, though I'll have no shortage of breeding stock with the addition of my two NEW Galloway heifers!  I'm picking them up in Missouri near the Lake of the Ozarks on Friday.  Galloways are another prime grass-fed beef breed.  We'll hold a little competition to see who grows the best at Bluestem Farm.

Bluestem Abe, a pretty white park steer

Not-so-wild Agnes

Cattle voyeur

Agnes, you may remember, has been slated for the freezer this coming June. With the recent departures of Nellie and Molly, though, it's starting to get lonely in the pasture.  Agnes, a little wild for my herd, is still pretty gentle by cattle standards, so I'm reconsidering.  The trigger for this reversal is the attention Agnes was seen enjoying yesterday from Abe, our growing steer calf. 

Cows in heat will mount and be mounted by one another (yes, including females and steers).  The cow that stands still while others mount her is the one in heat.  Without this behavior, it's close to impossible to know when to breed a cow by artificial insemination. Twelve hours after a cow is seen in "standing heat" is the time to breed her.

Agnes, though, has always had a more reserved relationship with the females of the herd; she mounts no one and no one mounts her.  Instead, when she's in heat she gets antsy and bellows across the road at the neighbor's bull.  All fine, but it leaves us guessing about that magical window of time for precise breeding.  I just gave it a guess and had my AI tech neighbor breed her anyway.  Of course, she didn't "settle" that way, and by the time the vet confirmed her to be "open" she had developed an ovarian cyst that had kept her from coming back into heat.  He took care of the problem, but that's when I thought about beefing her.

But yesterday... I spied Agnes responding to the attentions of young Abe.  If I can predict her breeding time, she may yet have a place in the herd.  Way to go, Abe!  I have 19-21 days to consider her fate before she comes into heat again.

And then there were five

Another sad day on the farm with Molly taking a new job north of Lawrence as nanny and nurse to a set of twin calves.  Jake was sorry to see her leave, but I think he'll do well without her kicking him in the head daily.  There's got to be a better way for Molly to tell him he's too old to be nursing.  She had a good life here, and if she had been nicer to me I would have kept her.

Now I can finally admit that I really don't like milking.  Someday I'll probably try it again, but for now I don't need a dedicated milk cow.  It gets too complicated trying to keep her and her calves on good grass, but still close to the barn.

Beef cows and calves...
Breeding guinea hogs...
Laying chickens...
Broiler chickens...
Ducks...

That's enough for now.

First snow at Bluestem Farm

Agnes, Mary, and Abe back in the corral at Bluestem Farm

The herd celebrated the first snow of the winter with a nocturnal jaunt through the yard.

With Molly and Jake locked in the barn for forced family therapy, I'm making regular trips to the round bale to pull off their hand- delivered rations.  More than once when I have pulled the gate shut, it hasn't latched, but last night is the first time anyone has gotten out.  I think the north wind blew the gate open and invited them to explore.

Young oak tree in our back yard

Scott noticed the tracks before sun-up this morning and followed them all around the yard by flashlight.  When he traced them back to the herd, they were contentedly munching hay at the feeder, having determined that there is indeed, NO grass on the other side.  Had there been grass showing, they may have lingered, but with a thick coat of snow, the yard was no more interesting than their own pastures. 

The birds are active and more visible with the snow.  They've found my suet feeder in the oak tree, and something of interest in the compost pile.

I'm truly grateful for all the dry, 50 degree days we've had this winter, but now with a little snow, I can finally stop watering my fruit trees!

Male cardinal sheltering in the oak

Udder trouble

Molly, the Jersey milk cow

The cold, dry wind and warm, wet calf slobber have taken a toll on Molly's teats.  They've been looking a little chapped, but now her left front teat has a crack in it.  Cows are pretty tough, but Molly's been uncomfortable enough to kick Jake off when he tries to nurse.  (Not that she needs much of an excuse- she's in mourning over Nellie's departure.)  The result was one full udder. 

I shut the disgruntled parent in the barn, and, with the help of the milk stanchion, Jake and I milked her out.  He took the back teats and I worked the front two.  She protested at first, but in the end she was relieved.  I polished her off with a good coat of bag balm to sooth her sore teat against the wind; I'll repeat this morning and night until she adjusts her milk production down to just feeding Jake.  I haven't milked her now in several months.  It's good to know I still have the knack.

Bag Balm

Things you can't do with bag balm on your hands:
- lift heavy objects
- pet the dog
- brush the hair out of your face
- turn the doorknob to leave the barn

Things you can do with bag balm on your hands:
- ... I'll leave that for someone else's blog

British White Park cattle

Mary, American British White Park cow

Most US cattle genetics are tailored for maximum beef production in a feedlot.  In order to raise beef on grass I needed to look for traits that are not favored by the commodity market: smaller-framed cows that reach maturity sooner, and will fatten well on grass.  Taste and tenderness are important, as well as a gentle disposition. 


When I was looking for a breed capable of excelling in all these areas, the British White Park cattle stood out.  These guys are not common in the US yet, but those that are here are owned primarily by grass-fed operations.

Mary is a great cow who has risen to the status of herd matriarch this year, supplanting Molly who is 2 years older.  She keeps the group together and brings them up to the barn when she hears me whistle.  Both she and her sister, Martha, "settled" on the first try when we bred them using AI.  I'm pleased with the growth and beauty of Mary's first calf, Abe, too.  It will be a while before I can attest to the taste and tenderness categories, but I'm confident that this breed is right for our farm.

Typical markings for White Parks are a white coat over darker skin, with "points" (ears, noses, feet, and teats) in black or red.  Mary and Martha are a little under-marked, but  there are plenty of well-marked bulls available via AI to set the traditional pattern in their offspring.  More about this amazing breed in fact and myth at the following websites:

www.americanbritishwhite.com/


www.whitecattle.org/history.html