My parents bought our place when I was 12, we were TOTALLY greenhorns, we got the cattle a year and a half later.. a dozen Herf X bred heifers and 4 weaned heifers.. What followed was a trainwreck of magnificent proportions, Lost 3 calves at calving, and 2 cows, later that summer we lost another, and a couple more in the next couple years, not counting the ones that didn't get bred or were mean beasts.
I don't know how heavy the bred heifers were, but the weaned calves were 400 lb TOPS, so I figure the breds were 800 lbs, and to us they looked HUGE.
Talk about a steep learning curve!
We've had many breeds of bulls, Starting with a RA, then Saler, 2 shorthorns, a Gelbvieh was bought sight unseen when the second SH failed us, and turned out to be the best bull we've had yet.. Now we have a Limo, and the jury is deliberating now, His first calves should drop within a month, maybe I'll get one in a couple weeks even.
I think we've come a long way from the trainwrecks we bought, we certainly have less problematic animals, Most of the udders are now perfect for a beef cow, I trim hooves once every couple years, some cows never, the calves are more muscled and uniform, and best part is most of the cows are now halterbroke, which makes handling them so much easier.. When I vaccinate I just walk behind them while they're eating, and it's done before they know it.
We also grew about 150,000 lbs of veggies a year (they paid the bills, not the cows), markets for that fell through, we downsized, I found work in the big town for about 10 years, came back 6 years ago, and have increased the herd from 18 cows when I came to 27, which is more than we've ever had... I'm pushing the capacity of our place, and running about a cow to every 2 acres, perhaps even a little more, and I'm still selling some hay.
