The hoity-toity cows (the place where I like to go) are much better mannered than the mongrels we have tomorrow. LOL

"Mongrels"? Perhaps they are rebelling against racial profiling...I still say sing to them and treat them like ladies - and keep a baseball bat handy. Good luck!

Oh, but they ARE mongrels............such a bunch of cross-breeding in that barn. LOLOL

Ah, Anna, the breeds of the future: Holseys and Milking Shortsteins and the wonderful Ayrbackers. There's a lot of strange thinking out there.

Sorry I've been absent. In spite of the flu shot, I came down with the lovely stuff anyway last Thursday and have been fighting my way back ever since. I'm mostly better, just really tired and achy left.

In the beef business - at least in our climate - mongrels, which we prefer to call hybrids, are the norm. Unless crossed with tougher breeds, the heavy European and British cattle do not thrive here. I like Long Horn crosses, but most popular now are the Brahman hybrids: Brangus, Braford, as well as the American breeds: Santa Gertrudis, Santa Cruz and Beefmaster and others which all contain some Long Horn or Brahman genetics.

Sorry to hear the flu got you Kathleen; I always feel the vaccine is developed for last year's flu. The disease is always one step ahead of us.

Kathleen, I'm sorry the germs caught you. I hope Stan didn't get it. How is he doing?

Here in our part of beef country, crossbreds are the norm, with black Angus and Hereford being the most common. We have several purebred ranches in the area where excellent quality breeding stock is raised, plus the AI guy is busy bringing in semen from afar. Some of the purebred ranches sell through video auctions. Thomas Angus Ranch is one of them. Some of their bulls go for over $50,000. A neighbor had some Beefmaster cattle a few years ago, halfbreds I think, and now their crossbred decendents are mixed in with several others, well blended and unnoticeable.

The favorite market calf currently seems to be either black Brangus or Black Angus bulls on a Braford cow. For some reason black calves sell best (?) Even ranchers with a real mixture of true mongrel cows will breed to Angus bulls to get a uniform looking black calf crop.
Mary, are Black Herefords being produced there? - As if we needed another "breed".

Stan missed the flu, thank goodness. he's doing fine - feeding cows and spreading manure and fixing things. he's started cardio rehab and has found that he does have a few areas that need work.

We used to have a neighbor who had red Angus.

At the feeder cattle sales I work at Equity, it seems that the black cattle bring more. Who knows why???

Kathleen, I'm glad to hear that Stan has started rehab. I'll bet he was surprised to learn that he had some weak areas.

I hadn't heard of Braford but I can see what it is. Nobody here raises the type of cattle that have been developed for hot climates. Ours need a lot of hair to thrive outside, without shelter, in the winter. Those loose folds of relatively hairless skin, with veins close to the surface, are not good for a climate where we have months of below freezing weather with snow and wind. They are great for cooling in southern climates.

I haven't heard of Black Herefords. Always something new. Polled and horned, yes. Chandler Ranch is still raising horned Herefords and has for over 100 years. Most of the Herefords are polled. Horns are a pain. They don't fit well in squeeze chutes, and they tend to use them on each other and on humans. Getting hit with a big blunt head with 800 pounds of cow behind it is bad enough, without having protrusions! When I think about it, Black Herefords might be what we call black baldies, a black cow with a white face. Those are very common here. Half breds look like that, 3/4 or some other mix has black eye patches and other black markings on a white face. The neck stripe and white underparts disappear with the first cross.

Yeah, here they're called Black White Faces. They go pretty good at the feeder sales.

Cold here this morning. SU is saying he will probably have frozen waterers since the water pipe to the bathroom is frozen. Can't flush the toilet, so it's off to the cellar with my hair dryer to shoot hot air.

Glad the milking job was done last night. Whew!

From what I can learn, Black Herefords are a souped up black baldie. They have to be at least at least 5/8 Hereford and breed true for several generations. They are certainly not a great breed for this area - a little hybrid vigor, I guess, but still dense and hairy, and black. I see they are having a sale in Alvarado in which some lots are advertised as homozygous black. I like red cows myself.

Any Angus i have ever been in contact with have been hyper. Herefords are just SO laid back. But for true hyper, I think the Chianinas are worst. Look at 'em wrong and they're gone. At least that's how they USED to be. Maybe it's been bred out of them over the years. Or maybe they aren't bred anymore. LOL

When I was growing up in north central Washington, everybody had Herefords. Then one of the ranchers bought some black Angus. They were wild things, he couldn't keep them fenced in. So then everyone thought those few were what the whole breed was like, and nobody wanted any.

We knew a guy who replaced his Holsteins with Charolais. Said they were the darnedest things - only cow he knew that could kick you with their hind legs when you were standing in front of them. Stan's dad bought a Hereford cross cow from some joker. They had to shoot her to get her home to butcher. She had taken up 'free-ranging' through the neighborhood. In the process, his brother shot the tractor their dad was sitting on. It makes for a funny story now...

The Hereford breeders (including Black) stress their cows' good dispositions. I've never had any Angus but I have found Limousins to be rather opinionated and difficult. I only have one of them left and she is the only cow who will not reliably follow the bucket - "C'mon cows!" or be readily driven from horseback.

Yeah, I've heard Limousins were on the wild side too, but the Chi's were worst.

Never dealt with one of them.

So at 5:30 AM it's 38F and the high is going into the 50s. It's foggy out and for some reason the girl who does the milking at night is here instead of her cousin. Nearly had me in panic mode when NO ONE was out there except Stan. I'll be curious as to what he got up to before Kelly came...

I've been trying to get up enough enthusiasm to plant some seeds. It's early yet, but pansies and lettuce do quite well now. Mostly, it requires a lot of clearing away the stuff that's accumulated over the winter on my plant light rack. And the energy to do it all.

RAin last night, thunder and lightning too. Lightning knocked out the switch on the pole by the road at midnight, so I called it in and it was fixed by 2am. Talking almost 60 today, then down to 20 by tomorrow and 3-5 inches of snow. Great. We're supposed to go to the Corn/Soy/Pork Expo at Wisconsin Dells on Thursday. Can't wait to travel 90 miles in that crap.