Cow Life Span and Husbandry

The average cow life span is 15 years, but it can vary between cow if the cow's environment is excellent or if the environment is poor. To insure a healthy, long living, and happy life style you should always do the following; make sure you have plenty of room for shelter and pasture, make sure there is always a dry place to lie down on when the weather is bad, know what you are doing when it comes to feeding and watering your cow, keep all of the vaccinations and medical needs up to date so no diseases occur or other nasty infections, lastly make sure the hygiene of the cow is nice and healthy for comfortable living conditions for your cow.

Hay and Pasture: what is inside everyday feeding hay and pasture

Some times the question will be thought of what is in the hay and the pasture that my cattle are feeding on. These are some of the grasses in the hay we get: meadow foxtail, perennial rye grass, annual sow thistle, shepherd's purse, Lambsquarters. Alopecurus Pretenses, known as the meadow foxtail , is a perennial grass belonging to the grass family. It is native to Europe and Asia. This common plant is found on grasslands, especially on neutral fsoils. Lolium Perenne, common name perennial ryegrass, is a grass from the family poaceae. it is native to europe, Asia and northern Africa, but is widely cultivated and naturalized around the world. Sonchus oleraceus is native to Asia, Austrailia, and Europe. The latin name Sonchus refers to the hollow stream, while oleraceus refers to its good taste. Capsella bursa-pastoris, known by its common name shepherd's-purse because of its triangular, purse-like pods, it is a small annual and ruderal species, and a member of the mustard family. Chenopodium album is a fast growing weedy annual plant in the genus Chenopodium. Though cultivated in some regions, the plant it else where considered a weed.f

Castration on Bull Calves

When you get a male calf there are a few decisions you need to make, but there is one you need to make quickly. That is if, when, and how you want to castrate your calf. The methods of castration are Burdizzo, rubber banding, and surgically removing.  The rubber band method is simply putting a tight rubber band around the base of the scrotum. It will cut the blood supply off and the testicles will eventually shrivel up and fall off. This method is used when the calf is very young and is virtually painless and is the best method of castration. If you wait to long to do the rubber band method you have to decide on either the Burdizzo method or the surgical method. If a calf is more than a couple months old it is to late to do the rubber band method.

The Burdizzo method is a non surgical method. A Burdizzo is a castration device which employs a large clamp designed to break the blood vessels leading into the testicles. Once the blood supply to the testicles is lost, the testicles shrink, soften, and eventually deteriorate completely. There can be complications from the Burdizzo if you do not do it correctly. Most people use the surgical method when castrating because it is the most common to people. The surgical method is simply cutting the testicles off surgically.

Calf Growth

The Bovine species grows at an unbelievable rate. There is a difference in size and weight between the bovine species. There is the beef breeds and the dairy breeds, the beef breeds are usually short and meaty while the dairy breeds are tall and lean. The common beef breed is usually angus or hereford cattle. The common dairy breed is either jersey or holstein, holstein cattle are tall and huge cattle while jersey cattle are small. Anyway calves usually will grow to be around eight hundred to one thousand pounds in a year. As they get older there consumption rate will skyrocket.

The Effect of the California Drought: Part 2

The hay that was delivered to our barn on monday was 200 bales short of what it should of been. The reason for that is that morning before 7 the semi truck had a collision with a herd of deer and the bales broke open and scattered on high way 20. We are getting a refund for the hay and hopefully get another 200 bales. This amount of hay that was delivered will most likely last 7 to 8 months at the most so hopefully we get a lot more rain before then so the prices will drop and supply will be high for California.

The effect of the California drought on hay prices: part 1

The drought that has occurred recently is going to make less hay and make the prices for the remaining hay extremely expensive. Ranchers and farmers say that as long as the drought continues, the nation's largest agricultural state will remain in turmoil, with repercussions stretching to consumer pocketbooks in the form of higher prices for such basic staples as meat, milk, fruit and vegetables. We are getting a full semi truck load of hay before the prices go up and it is going to last about 10 months to a year. Getting hay in bulk is better buying when cheaper even though it is a lot of a money but it would be the difference of 250 dollars a ton  or 350 dollars a ton which can add up to a couple thousand dollar difference.

Scours

Scours is technically just bad diarrhea, which you will almost never see in adult steers, bulls, or cows unless they are sick. Scours is more common in nursing calves because of the amount of milk they ingest in one feeding. My calves are nursing once in the morning and once in the evening. They nurse for more than five minutes on one cow. This used to be a problem because even five minutes would give them scours but now since they are getting bigger they can handle more milk quicker. If a calf gets extreme scours it could be fatal. So when my calf got scours I would reduce the amount of time he would get nursing until I saw good solid poop then I knew I was in the clear.