I really appreciate everyone's thoughts. I'm not trolling for compliments but this is all brand new to me. I've been wanting a few beefers for my entire adult life and it's only been fairly recently that I had the time, the space and the money to do anything about it. I started with Highlands for a number of reasons but the short version is that I like them, they're very easy to raise (minimal health problems and easy birthing) and they taste good. I knew when I did it that a lot of "real farmers" would think it was stupid, "cute", a fad or something else and that's OK, to each his own. My set up here is not a commercial one and, though I'd like to eventually make most or all of my money back, my reasons go way beyond money.
In addition to getting great pleasure from working with and looking at my animals, I'm really, really a big beef eater, as is one of my sons. My other son's not a big beef eater but I suspect he'll grow into one some day. My wife likes beef but not enough to have taken all this on without knowing that it was something I really wanted to do. I wanted healthy beef and I think I'll get it. He should be reasonably lean yet still tender and tasty, was mostly grass fed and is free of any drugs (I'm not on a soapbox and I fully understand why some drugs are given, particularly in commercial herds). All those things having been said, my biggest goal was to have a steak, roast, burger, etc. that I could bite into and say, "whoa, that's damn good". Hopefully I've accomplished that here. If not, I'll take my lumps, learn what I can from the experience and try to insure that the next one that goes down the road is a bit better than the first one.
By the way, I don't know a great deal about confirmation with Highland animals but this bull's still intact, still young and is definitely a fine looking animal, at least to my inexperienced eyes. If he wasn't too closely related to the rest of my herd, I'd likely keep him for breeding purposes. I had an offer to sell him but ended up selling another young bull instead because I was already close to finishing this one and was looking forward to the beef. It's all been a rather pleasant experience for me and I'm hoping for many more experiences with these animals as the years go by.
Thanks again for the comments.
