We’ve had several baby cows born this year.
No twins, although they all look like they could be twins. And they all hang out together and play together. And our cows all parent in a big family group, so half the time you can’t tell who belongs to whom. But they aren’t twins.
Molly’s calves continue to be the friendliest in the field. We’ve sold two of her heifers as future homestead milk cows. Even though we don’t halter-train them, they are more than friendly enough that it does not take much to pen them in a barn or small pasture and train them up.
They are not quite as bad as a bottle-fed lamb about being all up in your business all the time. But they also don’t gallop across the pasture at every twitch either. Zebu are naturally pretty docile and friendly. Even our bulls don’t give us any trouble most of the time–minus a few fence-jumping incidents. But we’ve never seen any sign of aggression. Excitement, yes. Aggression, no.
Don’t take it for granted, of course.
But we’ve been “threat-stomped” at by our sheep more than by our cows over the years. Other than that one time Molly tried to run Mr. Fix-It over when she had a new calf a few years ago.
More cows, of course, means more hay and feed to buy. And more cow paddies.
Which means we’ve had more compost to manage as well.
And more baling twine.
Good grief, the baling twine!
The stuff is a necessary evil, I guess. But, grrrr, it gets everywhere! And the net-wrap bales are wrapped with a very fine version of the regular string, so sometimes it’s even worse. There are lots of ideas for managing it, but they all just work..sort of…never great.
The good news is the AMAZING way the grass comes back under those “bare” patches where we fed hay or the compost sat for a season. One or two good rainfalls and that will be lush, green, and gorgeous!
Obviously, we compost on a large scale here in a pretty low-management system. (Read about our Farm Compost Management here.) But we also use various methods in the backyard for garden composting.
If you’re interested in your own backyard options, I highly recommend…
LET IT ROT! by Stu Campbell
THE RODALE BOOK OF COMPOSTING by Gurshuny and Martin.
