Eight Acres

When I first wrote this post back in 2011, Queensland had too much water , but usually water is very precious to us.  Being in a rural area, we rely on our own rainwater supplies for drinking water and septic to treat our sewerage.  I’m quite happy with that arrangement, as it means we don’t have to drink the unnecessary levels of fluoride and chlorine in town water.  It also means that we have to ration our own water supply when the weather is dry and consider everything that we put down the drain.  I feel sorry for people in the city having water rationing forced on them through water restrictions, we just have to be responsible for our own use.  The funniest thing is that my first reaction now when it rains is to put on several loads of washing so that the water isn’t wasted by running out of our full tanks (luckily we have plenty of space on the verandah to hang it to dry). We had TOO much water in Dec/Jan 2011 At our previous property we also had t...

We have some areas of our property with severe erosion damage that we are trying to repair (more here ).  This means that the cattle need to stay out as they just do more damage, however we don't want to be building massive permanent fences all the time, particularly when it may only be a temporary need.  The solution is electric fencing. fencing off our drain area and hoping something will grow Now that we have the gear and fence set up, I can't believe we didn't do it before, its so easy!  It can be a little expensive, but so are permanent fences, so you just have to weigh up the benefits and if you want something that's quick to set up and easy to remove later, this is the way to go. Firstly, we were given a small energiser (father-in-law bought it at a garage sale, amazing what he finds sometimes!), and a small roll of tape.  We bought a new car battery and some electric fence stakes.  We plugged it all in and dared each other to touch the tape.........

We generally try to avoid unnecessary chemicals , but one area in which we've been slow to find alternatives is with our animals. Until a few years ago, we were regularly drenching the cattle with ivermectin, dosing the dogs with flea treatments and wormers and occasionally had to dip all the chickens in malthison so get rid of lice. Since we got our milking cow , Bella, we became even more  reluctant to continue with the chemical treatments as we drink the milk everyday. Luckily we found Bel from Home Grown , who kindly answered my many house cow questions, including recommending Diatomaceous Earth for control of internal and external parasites in cows and cattle in general. I had also read about Diatomaceous Earth for chickens at Fowl Visions . Diatomaceous Earth, consists of the micro skeletons of fossilised remains of deceased diatoms, which are a type of algae found in both sea water and fresh water. They have sharp edges, which kills both internal and external parasi...

When we were planning to have our second steer butchered (this is another story ), we started to look around for a young steer to replace him and keep the remaining steer company.  We have learnt the hard way that one steer will not stay home (also another story ) and now always have at least two in the “herd” so they don’t get lonely.  Unfortunately it was not a good time of year to find a cheap poddy calf, with most around $300, it wasn’t really worth us buying one to raise if they were that expensive.  Finally someone answered my ad and told me he had a “Hereford cross steer”, just weaned, for $180.  Perfect! We turned up early one foggy Saturday morning to pick him up.  After driving 30 min with the cattle crate on the back of the ute, and with no real alternative, there was little chance that we weren’t going to buy the little fella.  When we saw him though, it was clear that he wasn’t a Hereford, or a steer!  So we brought home our little ...

I don't know many people in real life who have house cows.  A few acquaintances, but no good friends with whom I can talk regularly about cows.  Like many of my interests, I turn to blogs to find like-minded people who are happy to talk non-stop about cows, manure, hay, minerals, pasture, milking schedule and bottle-feeding calves!  As well as enjoying the topic of conversation, I also learn so much from these blogs, even though they are in different locations.  It seems like you can always learn more about house cows (aka family cows, dairy cows or milk cows).  I want to share my favourite house cow blogs with you today and I hope you can tell me about other sources of house cow information.   Read the rest over at my house cow ebook blog . Bella and Molly working on pulling that hay bale apart Buy my ebook "Our Experience with House Cows" on  Etsy ,  Lulu  and  Amazon , or email on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com to arrange del...

I wish we had luscious green grass for our cow year round, but like most places, we only have green grass for short periods.  In winter, we don't get much rain at all, and our sub-tropical grass species die off with the cooler weather.  This is when we need to feed our house cow extra hay and grain to supplement the meager offerings in our pasture.   Read the rest over at my house cow ebook blog. 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" Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm Marie from Go Milk the Cow Renata from Sunnyside Farm Fun Gavin from Little Green Cheese  (and The Greening of Gavin)

Our home butcher doesn't like to age our beef for more than 3-4 days as he has quite a complicated system to rotate his mobile cool-rooms to each customer.  If he let us hang our meat for longer he would need more cool-rooms and would have to put his prices up, so we don't mind fitting in with his schedule.  This does mean that our beef is not as tender as if it was hung for longer.  Some people will hang a beef carcass for up to two weeks! wet aged rib fillet  We have found a couple of different strategies to still get tender meat.  Both involve what is known as "wet aging" the meat.  Wet aging means aging the meat in vacuum packs after it is butchered, as opposed to dry aging which is hanging the meat in a cool-room before its butchered ( read more about it here ).  This is a technique that has only been possible since plastic bags and vacuum sealers have been available.  The first few times we had beasts killed we wet aged all the good s...

I was recently contacted by a friend with a sick steer.  She described his symptoms and I was concerned that is sounded quite serious, but I hesitated to recommend that she called a vet.  Unfortunately the animal later died, which confirmed my suspicions, however we were both comfortable that she did all she could to save him. I hesitated for a couple of reasons: Calling a vet out after hours can be expensive, often more than the animal is worth (and I checked that this was livestock rather than a pet) There's not always much a vet can do for sick cattle other than give antibiotics and hydration, which may not have saved him This incident made me think about how we decide when to call the vet and I wanted to share a few thoughts on this topic.   Read the rest of at my house cow ebook blog . 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. ...

A couple of times now I've heard people say that only bulls have horns.  The second time it was a radio announcer.  I thought I better write a post to explain that some cows have horns.... and some bulls don't!   Read more about why some cattle have horns over on my house cow ebook blog. Polled Angus steers - no horns Miss Molly cow - definitely has horns, but her calf Chubby had a polled sire, so she doesn't have horns 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" Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm Marie from Go Milk the Cow Renata from Sunnyside Farm Fun Gavin from Little Green Cheese  (and The Greening of Gavin)

At this time of year I like to summarise my posts on various topics.  See my posts about cattle and cows over on my  house cow ebook blog .  I'll leave you with a series of cute calf photos... 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 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" Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm Marie from Go Milk the Cow Renata from Sunnyside Farm Fun Gavin from Little Green Chees...

Sometimes I tell people that we have steers, and they think I said "stairs" and then I have to explain what steers are, and that not all cattle are "cows".  Even worse is the terms used in cattle sale reports, yearling store quality steers sold well, while cows with calves at foot were generally in poor condition.  And it goes on.  If you are still confused, pop over to my house cow ebook blog for some help with cattle terminology.... 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 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...

When we first started with cattle I found the rules and regulations for buying, selling and moving cattle to be very confusing.  Here are a few tips that you may find useful.  Remember that I am no expert, I'm just telling you what I understand of the system, consider this advice from a neighbour leaning over the fence, please check the details with your local stock inspector or state department of primary industries (or equivalent).   Read the rest on my house cow ebook blog . 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 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 info...

Recently our poor little steer Monty suffered from "three-day sickness", which is like a severe cattle man-flu.  He was depressed and didn't want to get up, but he was better after three days, which was a huge relief for us!   Read more about it on my house cow ebook blog here . 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 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" Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm Marie from Go Milk the C...

On our farm we have dogs, cattle (the house cows being a special category) and the chickens (also guinea fowl until recently).  They all offer entertainment and learning opportunities.  This is what I wrote about our animals in 2014. The dogs - Cheryl and Taz What I've learnt about puppies Training our Taz - puppy months and dog years Dog box update Happy Birthday Puppy Taz! The cattle Cattle fencing tips for small farms Solar electric fence energiser How to join electric fence polywire Branding our cattle - Part 1 - registering a brand Branding our cattle - Part 2 - how to brand Animal behaviour and staying safe around cattle Keeping a bull on a small farm Lantana poisoning killed our little bull How to give an injection to livestock The house cows (special cattle) How to tell if your house cow is on heat House cow milking schedule The story of our house cows The story of our cows - Part 2 And my ebook "Our experience wi...