Did you know that a heifer (female) calf that is twin to a bull is almost certainly infertile? Apparently bovines are the only animals that this happens with – goats and sheep can have multiple births and all will be fertile.
The reason is that the testosterone in the womb from the male [...]
I feed the calves twice a day (apart from some evenings when the kids have activities and I’m home too late – although it has been known for Brian to still be milking when we get home and out I go!). They get three litres of milk twice a day, just over 120 calves at the moment so that’s 60 gallons being carried in 2 x 3 gallon buckets around the yards. Brian did look at getting a pump and [...]
One of the reasons I write this blog is so that it can be a sort of journal or diary. I’d love to be able to read a diary from my grandmother’s time – what they paid for items, how much they got for their calves, her daily chores, what she enjoyed, what she found tedious, how she managed bringing up 9 children. Some time ago I found a document from 1973 and it was so interesting reading about milk [...]
It’s been a busy month, we’re up to 120 calves now with 25 cows left to calve. To say the compact calving worked well this year is an understatement! ?Having said that, most of the allnighters and long mornings and evenings teaching newborns how to drink milk are over, feeding them now is pretty quick. ?More on that in the next blog post!
We were delighted last year to sell one of our bull calves to Dovea for as an AI test bull, after many small hiccups and delays.
It’s nice to see Garrendenny Lucifer featured in the catalogue – nice EBI now of 262 now too. It’ll be interesting to see how he gets on. His Garrendenny comrades are [...]
