New to Cattle Today and Cattle in General

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Polywire is like a string, but it has several very fine wires running through it. It is a portable electric fence wire. If you get this far, also buy yourself an electric cord reel (for extension cords). All the hardware stores have them. It's just a wheel that you can use to roll up the polywire. You don't need anything fancy. You will need posts. I get the white push in the ground with your foot type.
You need:
Fence charger
polywire
posts
insulators - for ends to tie to or trees you may use as posts. They have nice nail-in insulators for trees and wooden posts.
If nothing else, you can confine them to a coral or barn lot during the winter and feed hay, so the land is not getting abused during non-growing season.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

Polywire is like a string, but it has several very fine wires running through it. It is a portable electric fence wire. If you get this far, also buy yourself an electric cord reel (for extension cords). All the hardware stores have them. It's just a wheel that you can use to roll up the polywire. You don't need anything fancy. You will need posts. I get the white push in the ground with your foot type.
You need:
Fence charger
polywire
posts
insulators - for ends to tie to or trees you may use as posts. They have nice nail-in insulators for trees and wooden posts.
If nothing else, you can confine them to a coral or barn lot during the winter and feed hay, so the land is not getting abused during non-growing season.

@Jeanne - Simme Valley, @AmandaQ doesn't have snow on the ground 6 months out of the year like some producers. She has a small enough area, she might want to try planting some cool season annuals into her Bermuda and be able to graze those over the winter. It's something for her to consider. @Warren Allison might have a thought or 2 on this. I was thinking maybe oats, annual rye or triticale. I don't want to overwhelm Amanda with too many ideas though. The pasture rotation comes first.

The white, push in (or step in) are plastic (don't conduct electricity) and have several hooks/clips up and down the side of the post. The difference with these, vs pig tails, is pig tails are metal with insulating material on their 'curly Q' at the top. The pig tails will accommodate a single wire. The white step in will accommodate multiple poly wire strings.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

The white step in also give you options on height. My land is not flat lol.

 

[Warren Allison]

@Jeanne - Simme Valley, @AmandaQ doesn't have snow on the ground 6 months out of the year like some producers. She has a small enough area, she might want to try planting some cool season annuals into her Bermuda and be able to graze those over the winter. It's something for her to consider. @Warren Allison might have a thought or 2 on this. I was thinking maybe oats, annual rye or triticale. I don't want to overwhelm Amanda with too many ideas though. The pasture rotation comes first.

The white, push in (or step in) are plastic (don't conduct electricity) and have several hooks/clips up and down the side of the post. The difference with these, vs pig tails, is pig tails are metal with insulating material on their 'curly Q' at the top. The pig tails will accommodate a single wire. The white step in will accommodate multiple poly wire strings.

From what I can see in the pics she posted, looks to me like she has bermuda and fescue. A very common pasture mix here. If there isn't any already, she could sow some clover. @AmandaQ , I don't think you need to do anything. Try to stick to the K.I.S.S. method. As gentle as you have them, you might occasionally worm them ( pour on), and spray them with fly spray in the summer. . I myself wouldn't worry about vaccinating them...no cows around for them to catch anything from. So need to worry about chutes and head gates and catch pens, etc. Quit feeding them anything but grass (and maybe hay when the grass is gone. Might post a pick of the run-in horse shed. IF you ever did need to load them on a trailer for some reason, I bet a few portable corral panels is all you'd need to fashion an area to hold them in, then back your trailer to. I'd get them a mineral salt block and be done with it. Might get you a couple of hens for eggs. Don't need no rooster. They will keep the cow piles torn up, looking for maggots, and that holds the flies down. Dead of winter, you might give them just a double handful of WSC, so the chickens will dig around in the manure after it. I go to the cow sale in Athens every once in a while. Next time I know I am going, I will message you and see if you'd want me to stop by and see your setup. But, honest;ly, I think you are ok just like you are doing.

 

[wbvs58]

Polywire is like a string, but it has several very fine wires running through it. It is a portable electric fence wire. If you get this far, also buy yourself an electric cord reel (for extension cords). All the hardware stores have them. It's just a wheel that you can use to roll up the polywire. You don't need anything fancy. You will need posts. I get the white push in the ground with your foot type.
You need:
Fence charger
polywire
posts
insulators - for ends to tie to or trees you may use as posts. They have nice nail-in insulators for trees and wooden posts.
If nothing else, you can confine them to a coral or barn lot during the winter and feed hay, so the land is not getting abused during non-growing season.

Jeanne, all my polywire reels have a plastic handle on the end of the wire with a moulded hook on the end of it to just hook onto an existing wire fence. If I need to terminate to a tree I just use the nylon baling twine.

Ken

 

[Hippie Rancher]

The "8 year old heifer?" Really was a question. To be quite honest, I've never heard of an 8 year old animal that has not had a calf, which, because of no calf, she can't be a "cow" either. "Heifer" refers to two years or younger. So, what is she? I just googled it, and learned something myself:

A heifer is a young female cow that has not yet given birth to any calves. Usually, once a heifer is one year old, she is bred with a bull. Once a heifer gives birth, she is then referred to as a cow. If a heifer is older than two and has never calved, she may then be referred to as a heiferette.

So, I have a new term to include in my vocabulary!

we call those barren

 

[AmandaQ]

From what I can see in the pics she posted, looks to me like she has bermuda and fescue. A very common pasture mix here. If there isn't any already, she could sow some clover. @AmandaQ , I don't think you need to do anything. Try to stick to the K.I.S.S. method. As gentle as you have them, you might occasionally worm them ( pour on), and spray them with fly spray in the summer. . I myself wouldn't worry about vaccinating them...no cows around for them to catch anything from. So need to worry about chutes and head gates and catch pens, etc. Quit feeding them anything but grass (and maybe hay when the grass is gone. Might post a pick of the run-in horse shed. IF you ever did need to load them on a trailer for some reason, I bet a few portable corral panels is all you'd need to fashion an area to hold them in, then back your trailer to. I'd get them a mineral salt block and be done with it. Might get you a couple of hens for eggs. Don't need no rooster. They will keep the cow piles torn up, looking for maggots, and that holds the flies down. Dead of winter, you might give them just a double handful of WSC, so the chickens will dig around in the manure after it. I go to the cow sale in Athens every once in a while. Next time I know I am going, I will message you and see if you'd want me to stop by and see your setup. But, honest;ly, I think you are ok just like you are doing.

Warren, I would love for you to stop in and see my situation! Thank you!!
Amanda

 

[AmandaQ]

Hi and Welcome to the forum! Cattle as pets? Around here NW of Ft Worth lots of people keep longhorns as "yard art". It makes them feel more "Texan" and can help with an agricultural exemption on their property taxes. As to your question, I look at it from the standpoint of a 70 yr old that has seen in my friends how a small accident with a large animal can nearly ruin the rest of your life. Safety with animals is good for you and for them. I would have at least the minimum handling facilities, like several on the forum have suggested.

Just as an anecdote or two. I bought two of the most gentle heifers for my first cattle. I got them at about 4 months old and kept them a year. I could rub all over them and scratch behind their ears. They would nearly give me a bath licking the salty sweat from my arms. Worming with Ivermectin pour-on was easy. All I had was a pen with feed and water troughs for their daily treat of a few cubes. When it came time to load them, they were not very cooperative. They weren't afraid of me so any amount of pushing or clapping or yelling did no good. I finally got a rope and with the help of two other men dragged the heifer into the trailer. It was stressful for the heifer and more than exhausting for everyone involved. It was bad! FWIW, If you care about your animals, provide a way to doctor and transport them because, at some point, you will need to do just that.

BTW-Later, I bought a couple of large Charolais cows along with their calves and soon realized they were so big that I needed a way to medicate and load them without getting hurt. I built a swinging gate with a quarter circle to leading to a chute with an old head gate off Craigslist.

My sweet cows are working on halter training but like you said, they are not afraid of me at all!