We’ve now had Bella for about 18 months and have learnt so
much about owning a house cow! As I
mentioned in my kitchen update, having access to raw milk has allowed
me to experiment with lots of the recipes in Nourishing Traditions. Bella has a very gentle nature, but she is
her own cow, and will tell us very clearly (usually by kicking) if she is not
happy with something we are doing.
Links about Butchering
Home butcher vs meatworks
Homekill meat - some tips for beginners
Homekill butchering
Tanning a hide
Tanning a steer hide - update and answers
How about your cattle? Do you have a house cow or a herd? How did they do this year? What did you learn? Please comment or link to your own post below.
Chicken update
Garden update
Kitchen update
You might also be interested in my series on getting started with homestead dairy
 |
| Bella with her foster calf Romeo |
I wrote a post about choosing a house cow, often you don’t
have much choice, we were offered Bella and had to decide if we would take her,
but this might help you to know what to look for and how to find yourself a house cow. We also learnt early on how to milk Bella,
how to manage mastitis, how to arrange for the vet to AI her so she could get
back in calf and finally weaning Molly to prepare for the next calf. We then went through the birth of Bella's calf,
which died, and had to get a foster calf, which she eventually accepted. Finally we are now going to have to make some
decisions about castrating the little foster calf, which I will write up in
more detail, but here is a post about castrating little Rocket. We also bought Donald the Dexter bull and he has successfully got Molly pregnant. That was much less interesting than having the vet do AI!
 |
| Miss Molly |
Links about House Cows
The perfect house
cow (not that Bella is perfect!)
|
 |
| Big D-onald the dexter bull |
In the middle of the year we had another steer killed
(Bratwurst) and spent a morning packing the meat into the freezer. I’ve now written three posts of home
butchering, which may be of interest if you haven’t done it before. Following the butchering, we then started to
process the hide. It is currently still
under salt in the shed, because we’ve been too busy to start it, but we hope it
will come out as good as the last one we did.
Links about Butchering
Homekill meat - some tips for beginners
Homekill butchering
Tanning a hide
Tanning a steer hide - update and answers
Early in the, year we also bought an additional, much larger
property, so that we could start to have more cattle and develop a truly sustainable
and self-sufficient property, with some excess to sell as well (more to come in the farm update). This led to some interesting experiences, firstly
with the steers that we bought and then had to chase around our property after
then got through some fences. This got
us thinking about the beef cattle industry and we decided that we would rather
keep cows than buy other people’s (crazy) weaner steers. We then found a lovely herd of Braford cows
and calves, which we brought to the new property. Then a couple of the calves got sick and we found that we had paralysis
ticks on the property and had to work out how to deal with them.
We had lots of decisions about managing the cattle and suddenly they are governed not just by our own preferences, but by the preferences of “the market”. We now need to consider whether to vaccinate, how to castrate, and when to dehorn our calves. We have had one attempt at working the entire herd through our cattle yards to put insecticidal ear tags in the calves, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that we could move them all through with just the two of us in about two hours. We will soon be getting our first Braford bull too. There is still much to learn, but the more I am finding out about Brafords, the more I love them, there will be much more to write soon.
We had lots of decisions about managing the cattle and suddenly they are governed not just by our own preferences, but by the preferences of “the market”. We now need to consider whether to vaccinate, how to castrate, and when to dehorn our calves. We have had one attempt at working the entire herd through our cattle yards to put insecticidal ear tags in the calves, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that we could move them all through with just the two of us in about two hours. We will soon be getting our first Braford bull too. There is still much to learn, but the more I am finding out about Brafords, the more I love them, there will be much more to write soon.
 |
| Benny the orphan |
Links about Beef Cattle
 |
| A herd of Braford cows |
Chicken update
Garden update
Kitchen update
You might also be interested in my series on getting started with homestead dairy
Interview with myself
Interview with Mark and Kate from Purple Pear Permaculture
Interview with Kim from the Little Black Cow
Interview with Rose Petal
Interview with Marie from Go Milk the Cow
Interview with Ohio Farmgirl
Interview with Mark and Kate from Purple Pear Permaculture
Interview with Kim from the Little Black Cow
Interview with Rose Petal
Interview with Marie from Go Milk the Cow
Interview with Ohio Farmgirl
Buy my ebook "Our Experience with House Cows" on Etsy, Lulu and Amazon, or email on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com to arrange delivery. More information on my house cow ebook blog.
Reviews of "Our Experience with House Cows"
Gavin from Little Green Cheese (and The Greening of Gavin)
I really appreciate these posts. While we don't have cattle, we are relatively new to farming and have been learning quite a lot along the way. :-)
ReplyDeleteWe would love a house cow but at the moment it is just not practical. We do not have quite enough land so will probably wait till we move to NZ.
ReplyDeleteHappy to help! We are all learning as we go along...
ReplyDelete