There's a bunch of my cattle that I will admit I'm emotionally attached to, and then others that I would let go in a heartbeat if they missed calving once. In particular, I have one line of cows that is exceptional.. the mother of them all (born 1991, hereford) was one of the heifers we bought when we started, and the first to come up to you, became halterbroke, and gave me 13 calves, I've kept 3 heifers from her, and still have 2... Of those two, one is the oldest (Saler X)in the herd at 17 years old, expecting her 16th calf, and weans 700 lb heifers that look really good. We were going to put her down last fall since she has some arthritis in a hip, but circumstances just prevented it, so I've got her on some anti-inflamatory meds, and she is with the heifer calves so she doesn't need to walk as much and compete for food. She's been a great cow to work with and has never had an ounce of trouble... Her sister is the one I just brought to the vet (See my "Spooked Cow?" thread), while her performance hasn't been stellar, it's because of her I've discovered deficiencies in my feed, and she was the one that showed them the most, so her troubles weren't all her fault. She raises the best steer calves anyone could want, drops a 140 lb calf without a sweat, and gives about 5 gallons of milk a day (and lets you take some). So she got the benefit of a vet visit since she's ailing with something, and the vet had to say she was the best cow he's ever worked with. Meanwhile her daughter's first calf was born at 110 lbs, and weaned at 680... I have some high hopes for her in the future... If her mother give me any more problems, I will sell her, but the great granny will die on the farm... Often, if a cow has been good for such a long time (usually about 15 faithful years), we'll let her have a year of "retirement" before putting her down... This old one isn't taking any retirement though.
Cattle from other bloodlines I have gotten to like as well, but nothing quite like that line.. they just have something special about them.
I don't currently have any dogs or cats, and have never had horses.. but I can certainly say I'm closer to my cattle than I've been to any other pets. I've had to let some I really regretted go, while others have kicked the bucket prematurely.
So I look at it as having pets that pay their way... they do have to be good animals, I don't mind a small calf the first time, but I expect the following ones to be improved.. I won't put up with anything that gives me too much work.. fencebusters, the ones that go the wrong way every time, stupid mothers, or anything that's a hazard to my health. Well... I have some great producing cows who are witches and I'm just waiting for them to mess up... they probably never will though
... I hated that little c!@#sucker with a passion. And while I know that we like to believe that animals share our emotional atatchment to them and it is usually not the case, I'm pretty sure he hated me as much as I hated him. We've had a good time chasing each other around in the rocks for the last two years with him pretending that he was going to kill my dogs and me trying to get close enough to get a rope on him.
