Sunday, April 06, 2008

Aren't they cute???


Here are our girls and their babies!!!
Play date

Social gathering


Mother and child

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

cute pix chris- cracks me up everytime i think of you living on a farm! who woulda thought heh? have a great weekend enjoy the nice weather your having up there.

merinz said...

ohh they are so beautiful!

What breed of cattle are they? They look a bit like herefords.

Have the Mums been housed indoors all winter or are they hardy enough to survive outside?

Farmer John said...

Every day now there are new ones popping out.
The cows are Red Angus crossed with Charolais. Every once and a while the blood lines of the cows show their lineage of Hereford, or Simmental, Short Horn and others.
The cows are outside year round and they like it that way. As long as the cows are dry and out of the wind they are fine.

merinz said...

Thanks for the info John! I can see the Charolais look about them.
More questions - do you milk them or are they raised for beef. Do you send the calves off or rear them for future stock?

Just interested!

Farmer John said...

Hi Mrinz!
It's a commercial herd. Most stock are sold as yearlings with some for future breeding stock.

We used to keep one for milk. It is a lot of work for just one cow for milk.

What kind of cattle are common in New Zealand?

Anonymous said...

Awww, sooo cute! I guess I would have a hard time eating beef if I were that close to my food...

Hmmm, maybe tofu for lunch. Are they as soft as they look?

merinz said...

Hi John,

Thanks for answering the questions!

When I was young we had a 'mixed' farm, - cows on the flats, sheep on the hill pasture and pigs. The cows were a dairy herd and we supplied only cream to the dairy factory so we had machinery - separators and such to do that ourselves. The skim milk was fed to the pigs. Our herd were mostly jerseys with one or two fresian ane Ayrshire crosses. jerseys have the creamiest milk!

Nowadays there are not so many cream suppliers, in fact hardly any, most milk is picked up by milk tankers and taken to huge dairy factories for processing into various products, much of it for export - milk powder, casein, milk biscuits, etc.

The some is used for town supply also and of course cheese, yoghurt etc. NZ has just signed a trade agreement with China and many of our milk products will go there.

Now in the paddocks we see more Fresian cows than jerseys (Fresians gave more volume of milk but not so creamy). But also we see herefords and Charolais - probably raised for meat rather than milk.

Uncivil said...

Wow! This is my kind of post John! I wish I lived next door to your farm or anyone's farm where I could gaze at the livestock all day.
They are gorgeous!

Unknown said...

They are all adorable! I love how happy they look. :)

From Our Farm to Your Table

Blog Archive

Farmers Feed Cities

You Can Find Me Here!




Affiliates

Brand Ambassador for

For Fellow Bloggers

Connect With Advertisers - Sign up for SocialSpark!
A Reliable Blogger

Proud Recipient

© 2006 - 2012 Life on Manitoulin. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Blogger.

About the Blog Author


City girl moves to the country, falls in love, and marries a farmer. She tries to incorporate her city ways with her new country lifestyle and blogs to keep in touch with friends, family & students who live far, far away :) Can this city girl go country? Watch as she learns all sorts of exciting things about life on the farm and in a small rural community. *UPDATE* We are now parents! Our baby girl was born on Nov. 11, 2008 (at 28 weeks gestation- 12 weeks premature, but she's quite the trooper)!!!
Contact Me

Les Boutons!

Life on Manitoulin: Just a bunch of ramblings from a city girl gone country!

Life on Manitoulin: Just a bunch of ramblings from a city girl gone country!

Let's Connect

Members

Support


Photobucket


Related Posts with Thumbnails