Tag Archives: calves

Posts about a calves or cattle and Texas ranching on Texas Homesteader’s website. #TexasHomesteader

Weaning Day Done Properly

By Texas Homesteader

Aaahhhh spring! The grass turns a beautiful lush green and the trees start leafing out. And here at the Homestead it also means weaning time for the fall-born calves.

Weaning the calves from their mamas takes a huge nutritional drain off of the dams and allows them to regain their proper body condition in preparation for their next calf. It’s an important health step for a vibrant and healthy herd.

We like our calves to stay with their dam until they are at least 7 months old. But we’ve weaned early when the conditions warranted such as during a drought.

There's more to weaning calves than separating calf from dam. Preparation starts a couple of weeks before the separation ever happens. #TexasHomesteader

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A Day At the Homestead

by Texas Homesteader~
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I’m often asked what a typical day looks like when you’re both living and working on a Homestead. Well I can say in all honesty that it’s NEVER boring!  It’s funny how it’s near impossible to plan with certainty what a day in our lives will look like. There are so many variables like weather, cattle illness, fence issues, etc.

But c’mon and tag along today & I’ll show ya what a typical day looks like for us here in our Texas paradise.

Wonder what it's like to live & work on a Texas homestead? Well c'mon down & spend the day with us! #TexasHomesteader

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Why Not Just Do It Right The First Time?

by Texas Homesteader ~ 

Most of you already know that due to health issues I wasn’t able to raise my beloved batch of bottle baby calves this year as I usually do.

And as a result RancherMan purchased bottle-fed calves that had already been weaned to pasture so that I could still enjoy their cuteness.

(Oh how I love him for that)

Why not do things right the first time? We had the misfortune of dealing with an unscrupulous calf seller - lost 2 to disease & had to repair 2 botched castrations. #TexasHomesteader
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The Sad Side Of Ranching – Dishonest Sellers?

by Texas Homesteader~ 

Tough days. I love raising bottle babies each spring but my health prevented it this year. So RancherMan found someone selling a set of bottle babies. They had already been weaned to pasture so that I could still get a dose of that bottle-baby sweetness.

When they were purchased this spring they were brought to our Homestead. Not only to allow me to scratch their cute heads every day but also for us to monitor them to make sure they would all do well in our program.

As they grew larger we began moving them to our offsite pasture to finish growing.

It's a sad fact of ranching life that sometimes you lose an animal to sickness or injury but doubly painful when you lose a calf from the seller's omission #TexasHomesteader
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Calf Care – Trouble In Paradise

by Texas Homesteader

When we’re weaning calves we like to fenceline them when at all possible. This allows mama and baby to see each other and eases their anxiety during the weaning transition.

We typically bring the calves into the barn pen where we have pretty heavily-fortified fences to allow the mama and baby to see each other. But the fences are strong enough to keep baby separated.

An after-hours late Sunday night vet call was made to save our registered Hereford calf. Read what he found! #TexasHomesteader

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Introducing The New Girls To Our Herd

by Texas Homesteader ~

We were forced to reduce our herd in 2011 and 2012 due to the gripping drought that held us captive those years. We have maintained a lower stocking rate and use temporary stocker cows of different breeds during times when the grass was plentiful, selling them when the grass waned. It was a painful decision but that flexibility allowed us to continue our ranching operation and emerge strong.

We were forced to reduce our herd due to the gripping drought that held us captive 2 years. But we're slowly beginning to add registered cows back into our herd. #TexasHomesteader

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