Well... it seems like we've been waiting forever for a calf, and there's still nothing... Nabisco is showing good signs of calving soon, she is the only one showing advanced signs for now. The other ones are starting to show slightly, but nothing to get excited about. Nabisco will be 8 years old this year, so this is not her first calf... as a matter of fact, only one of them will have their first calf this year. We are expecting 4 calves, since one of our cows is not bred... long story that I have told before!
Nabisco is bred to a Charolais bull, so we are expecting something light in color... I would love to have a white heifer. We will be keeping all of our heifers, since we don't have a bull that they are related to as they were all bred before we bought them... except for one... grrr!
The other cows, the red ones, are an Angus and Gilbvieh mix, they are a dark red and are supposed to be bred either Charolais or Red Angus... We'll have to wait and see! My friend, who is a beef farmer had bought some cows at the same place we did, one of his cows gave him a red angus calf... so we are expecting reds...
For some reason, red cattle doesn't sell well here in Canada. People want the white ones, even when buying for meat... Just an example, when we bought our steer for meat. We bought one red steer for a little over $600 and the white / blond one we bought for a little over $800... the two only had about 100 lbs of difference, the white one being a little bigger. These were steer... only for meat... what difference does it make if he is white, black or red?? He will taste the same in your plate!
Anyways, the steer have not been to slaughter yet, we are expecting to ship them in about 1-2 weeks. We've had them for 3 weeks (4 next weekend) and have been feeding them good food to get the best quality of meat. We have not slaughtered them before because we want to wait 30 days in case they were wormed or had shots (which I doubt), but it can really ruin the good taste. They are fed all natural corn and sweet feed every day with our top quality hay/alfalfa mix. They are happy campers and getting pretty friendly! I am not getting attached, I know how dangerous they can get once that gate doesn't separate us anymore. I can't wait to taste it! This will be our first meat harvest from our farm... we'll see how well we have made, but I have done a lot of research and we are aiming at top quality AAA meat. It is local produce and all natural, we know all that for a fact. We know where they come from and how they were raised. We've bought them to finish them and ensure that our meat will be of good quality. We've sold all of them to family and friends that are very happy that they can finaly buy a top quality meat locally.... Our grocery stores don't offer quality meat and we are sick of it!
So, I will have lots of pictures once Nabisco's calf is born... we expect a lot from this cow, maybe we are putting too much pressure on her! LOL Maybe another cow will calve before her!?!? We'll have to wait and see!
We have been waiting and watching too! We finally had a new calf born night before last, and expect 3 more any day now! Matter of fact, I am gonna go check on the girls here in about 30 minutes to see if there are any new additions! Good luck on your new little ones (when they get here, LOL!)
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