What or Who Influenced you to Raise Cattle?

[Beefy]

for real its suppposed to be 29 tonight. i'm going to have to put on two pairs of coveralls.

They are talking sleet here Sunday, I hate sleet and ice where is that 100 deg weather at.

i guess if you get it i'll eventually get it over this way too. two days ago the weather liars said it wasnt going to freeze anytime soon so i put all of my mothers and grandmothers flowers out to get rained on. i should have known better than to do that. was liking the 70-80 degree winter.

 

[Beefy]

Many of you already know that I have never owned any cattle, so I was hesitant to respond to this, but I'm going to antway.

I grew up working on my aunt & uncle's small dairy farm. They also had a few head of beefers and a few chickens and pigs around from time to time. Couldn't wait to get up there every summer, and spent a year there after high school. Did a lot of things the old fashioned way. I can even remember when they still shipped milk in the old milk cans and didn't have indoor plumbing.

Anyway, finally went to college but dropped out after a couple of years. Majored in Dairy Science. My life went in another direction and, for reasons I won't go into here, never was able to get started with any kind of livestock. Probably never will, but who knows for sure? Still enjoy talking, reading, and dreaming about cattle. That's why I'm here. I may get out of line once in awhile, but I hope sometimes the perspective of someone on the outside looking in can be of some help to some of you.

I hope this doesn't come across as sounding melancholy, because it's not meant to be. I have a wonderful family and a full, happy life. As for cattle, I'll just have to live that through all of you.

you can have some of mine, Van. Thelma needs a new home. one with deerfences or that is below freezing yearround.

 

[Gate Opener]

I grew up around cows. I also remember doing a lot of chores. Piling brush, putting out hay, pulling calves etc .. oh, and running from mean cows. One cow in particular, Mama named her Bonnie since she was so mean. Bonnie hated girls. Didn't mind men. I could go out and she would see me and it seemed like that cow would come from the back 40 to try and get me. I hated that cow.

Daddy let us kids pick out a cow for ourselves. We never got any calves or money for the cow and never had to pay for anything for them but they were our cows. I decided that I was going to halter break a calf of my cow. He was pretty good size when I decided to do this. Anyway I got the halter on him and day after day I would pull on that calf and he would stand there and I would pull, pull, pull then all of a sudden he would take off running with me in tow. He drug me all over the place. I never could get him to just walk it was either balk or full blast. We must have been a sight.


Anyway I didn't think I would ever get cows as a grown up but I'm glad I did since I enjoy them.

My dad did give me a calf one time(not from my cow)and when he sold it he gave me the money(which went straight to the bank). Still don't know what brought that on.

 

[llcupit]

Not much different than the rest Great Granddad, Granddad, and Father had been on part of the same land untill we moved to Kansas this past year. Nothing no better than watching healthy cows and calves in the pasture. ;-)

 

[cfpinz]

My grandparents gave me three cows when I was a small child, a hereford, a red angus and a red baldy. It's been downhill ever since then.

cfpinz

 

[Angus Guy]

We're just an old IL farm family. When they came over back in the 1800's they just kept on farming. My great-great grandfathers farm in Ireland is still in the family. Always had cattle so just the natural thing to do. Got talked into angus at 10 yrs of age and haven't been disappointed yet.

 

[Ryder]

There is a picture somewhere of me sitting up on my grandpa's plow mule before I was old enough to walk.
My folks got into the dairy business when I was three or four. One day my mother got upset when she found me in the barn with a cow that was bad to kick. I was under her and had stuck pine straws up into her teats. I didn't do it to hurt the cow. I just wanted to see how far up that hole went. I just always had sort of a knack with cattle. Nobody influenced me. I was just born that way.

 

[Bek]

I was in grade 7, and was talking to a teacher, and they suggested that I come and look at the ag dept., and the rest as they say is history.

 

[Limomike]

My aunt and uncle ran a dairy farm for years, and I always enjoyed being with them whether it was for doing chores in their barn, feeding, helping with the haying, etc...
Then my father-in-law was a beef producer, so I followed suite..

 

[Little Cow]

An old cowboy from Wyoming named Harold Slagle. He taught me the old values and how you have to watch after the creatures in your care. He was born in the late 1800s and lived until the late 1980s. I was lucky to know him in his last decade on earth. I still miss hiim sometimes.

Dr Nancy Irlbeck and Dr. Temple Grandin at Colorado State University. I had them as professors for Animal Nutrition and Animal Handling, respectively. They can take credit for giving me enough knowledge to not cause acidosis or bloat in my cows, (yet). And keeping me safe while working with them, (you know, my 'killer' ankle biters ).

And, all the folks, here and elsewhere, that have been doing this cow thing for years and are nice enough to, gently, or not so gently, nudge me in the right direction when I go astray...

 

[kim]

I grew up in a bad neighborhood in southern California. My first grade class went on a feild trip to a dairy farm. I had never seen cows before and I was smitten. When I got home that night I told my mom, "when I grow up I'm gonna be a holstein dairy farmer."

 

[dun]

I grew up in a bad neighborhood in southern California. My first grade class went on a feild trip to a dairy farm. I had never seen cows before and I was smitten. When I got home that night I told my mom, "when I grow up I'm gonna be a holstein dairy farmer."

Bad neighborhood and california are kind of redundant
What dairy did you visit and what year?

dun

 

[sidney411]

I've always had a knack wil animals my whole life. I was around horses more when I was younger. I was riding with the search team by the time I was 7. I got into cattle when I met my husband, 6 years ago. His family has been it cattle a long time. His Dad had a dairy, his grandfater raised reg herefords and his other grandfather also had a dairy. I've learned more from these boards then any other resource. I also found my best friend here!

 

[Popa Cosmin]

I read on internet about beef cattle. I thought is a good idea to breed Charolais because in our country there are no beef cattle. I had some money and started…
I like them and I still think it is a good idea.
Cosmin

 

[cfpinz]

... I've learned more from these boards then any other resource. I also found my best friend here!

Careful what you say, Crowder might start thinkin' he's got a friend.

cfpinz

 

[Victoria]

A cow named Aimee.

My grandfather bought the ranch and my mother and we three kids moved out here to take care of the cows when I was a couple of years old so I grew up with cattle. I liked them well enough but to be honest they didn't mesh with my perfect hair and such. I was not at all a tomboy. My older sister stayed to help my mother on the ranch so it never even occured to me to do so. So I moved and went to college for Marketing Management. After that I took a job as a retail manager while I looked for something else and ended up staying there for quite a few years. Then I got seriously ill and couldn't work. No money in meant no place to live so I moved back home with my mother. By then my sister had left the ranch and my mother was taking care of the cows alone. Calving season came and although I was still in a lot of pain most of the time I couldn't watch my mother do it alone, especially because of Aimee. Aimee was a first calver who had pinched a nerve giving birth. The calf was dead and she was unable to get up. She became my job. It took ten days but between her will to live and my I perserverance she got up.
My health started improving and I started looking for a job. Meanwhile I was still helping with the cows. My mother asked if I wanted to just stay with the cows and I jumped at the chance. I love it here and I love working with these incredible animals. I have a knack for cows, just wish it extended to horses but it doesn't. My sister is the one with a gift for horses.

 

[jersey lilly]

All of my ancestors in one fashion or another raised cattle. Some of them only had a few milk cows to furnish the family with milk, others raised beef cattle. I always knew that's what I wanted to do. From the time I was 3 or 4 years old I knew. It wasn't until moving to East Texas to Mr Lilly's family home that's been in his family since the 1850s that I actually had the opportunity to do it. All of his ancestors also run cattle. So.....here we are. Doin what we love to do. Wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[kim]

I grew up in a bad neighborhood in southern California. My first grade class went on a feild trip to a dairy farm. I had never seen cows before and I was smitten. When I got home that night I told my mom, "when I grow up I'm gonna be a holstein dairy farmer."

Bad neighborhood and california are kind of redundant
What dairy did you visit and what year?

dun

I believe it was one of the Bootsma farms in the Lakeview area in 1991-92.

 

[dun]

I grew up in a bad neighborhood in southern California. My first grade class went on a feild trip to a dairy farm. I had never seen cows before and I was smitten. When I got home that night I told my mom, "when I grow up I'm gonna be a holstein dairy farmer."

Bad neighborhood and california are kind of redundant
What dairy did you visit and what year?

dun

I believe it was one of the Bootsma farms in the Lakeview area in 1991-92.

Well after my time

 

[backhoeboogie]

Well after my time

:shock: :shock: :shock: Dun that was after my time too (4 months of he!! in '84). I couldn't get out fast enough. Then went to Vancouver, WA for 8 months. I enjoyed that.