Yankee Long Horns.

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SBMF 2015

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I got a call from a cousin (who has no cattle background) this afternoon. She wanted to let me know that a friend of hers was bringing her a pair of yearling longhorns from TX.
We talked about health papers and vaccinations, keeping the bull away from the hfr until she was ready to breed them, just very general "oh my your getting cattle" conversation .
The more we talked I remembered a saying I have heard " You can take cattle; East, West, or South, but never North"
I'm used to real world working cows that get fuzzy in the winter. Will these long horns handle mid-west January when it's zero for a high or will they freeze to death up here?
Is there anything else that is unique about long horns? I always thought it would be neat to have a couple just for conversation starters.
Thanks everyone.
 
They'll be fine. Longhorns are fine in the winters up here, as long as you bring them up while it's still warm and they have time to grow a hair coat as winter sets in. They'll need to make sure they time calving season for warm weather, though. Small calves freeze quickly.
 
I told her, she should breed them for June calves. I knew a guy that brought his Santa Gertrudis to Illinois from FL. I think he tried for a couple years then sold them. The calves all froze. They just couldn't back it up here.
 
The problem is the flora and fauna in the digestive tract. I would say a better saying is cattle can move west, but not east
 
Bigfoot said:
The problem is the flora and fauna in the digestive tract. I would say a better saying is cattle can move west, but not east

I've had good luck with western drought cows in the past. Seems like if they can survive out there they will thrive here. But everywhere I have bought cows from have either similar or worse winters than we do.
 
I don't know the science behind it but I've heard stories here about bulls from non fescue areas struggling to get acclimated to a fescue diet. Longhorns are tough so who knows.
 
I don't have fescue in my pastures and I don't want it. It's just something else to deal with. A good friend has some pastures with it and has had some issues getting the conception rates as high as in his non fescue pastures.
I guess feed wise I'd be more worried that they probably have never seen corn silage.
 
Longhorns are cool to look at, but how do you run them thru a squeeze chute to work. Knew a guy that him and his buddy were working their longhorns and one of them move her head and put his eye out. Wears a patch on his eye every since.
 
Here I'll try to kill two birds w one post. We don't work longhorns. They make and sell working pens for cattle w horns. If your gonna feed a cow to butcher a Longhorn ain't really a good choice. Longhorns do seem to make good beef and " good momma" cows if bred back right but there are better choices for quality beef but not many better " lawn mowers " out there in the market
 
SBMF 2015 said:
I don't have fescue in my pastures and I don't want it. It's just something else to deal with. A good friend has some pastures with it and has had some issues getting the conception rates as high as in his non fescue pastures.
I guess feed wise I'd be more worried that they probably have never seen corn silage.

What county you in? All we have is fescue here.
 
SBMF 2015 said:
I don't have fescue in my pastures and I don't want it. It's just something else to deal with. A good friend has some pastures with it and has had some issues getting the conception rates as high as in his non fescue pastures.
I guess feed wise I'd be more worried that they probably have never seen corn silage.
Wrong genetics and wrong type. Same old story.
 
BFE said:
SBMF 2015 said:
I don't have fescue in my pastures and I don't want it. It's just something else to deal with. A good friend has some pastures with it and has had some issues getting the conception rates as high as in his non fescue pastures.
I guess feed wise I'd be more worried that they probably have never seen corn silage.

What county you in? All we have is fescue here.

Henry. Most of our pastures were farmed forty/fifty years ago. Then were seeded down because it's HEL ground. Lot of blue grass, some clover, nothing very heat tolerant.
We bale most of our water ways. When we reshape and reseed water ways we don't use water way mix because it contains fescue.
 
ccr said:
Longhorns are cool to look at, but how do you run them thru a squeeze chute to work. Knew a guy that him and his buddy were working their longhorns and one of them move her head and put his eye out. Wears a patch on his eye every since.

I wouldn't try putting one through a squeeze chute, but you'd be surprised at how they can turn their heads to maneuver to get where they need to go. I used to have one I used on heifers that probably had a 5' horn spread, but I loaded him many times through a 28" wide chute.
 
We have one that I say has been one of the few cows I've ever bought that paid for herself with her first calf. Has her second calf on the ground now. At 3 years old her horns are not going to be as long as some but still pretty long. We have gotten her through the squeeze chute probably 3 times . She can turn her head and work her way through, but takes some time. Most time don't take the time or effort to get her through. The other day we put fly tags in and wormed them. After that day I decided that the time, she is getting cut out and penned away from the other cows. She slowed up the whole process by standing in the way and not budging either way. Couldn't get her out cause her calf had slipped in with her and couldn't get the other cows to go by her very easy. I put some pour on on her back and let her go. Have another older dehorned longhorn cow since she was a heifer, she is always one of the first to calve and will always wean off a big nice calf, but the heifers we have kept out of her have shown the LH influence pretty good at around a year old. She usually calves in the winter and has done fine though our winters aren't as cold and snowy as some places it's still pretty darn cold and wet a lot of times. She sheds off slick early in the spring. Fescue is the base of our pastures. My theory is to have cattle that work with what you have instead of trying to change everything to work for the cattle.
 
SBMF 2015 said:
BFE said:
SBMF 2015 said:
I don't have fescue in my pastures and I don't want it. It's just something else to deal with. A good friend has some pastures with it and has had some issues getting the conception rates as high as in his non fescue pastures.
I guess feed wise I'd be more worried that they probably have never seen corn silage.

What county you in? All we have is fescue here.

Henry. Most of our pastures were farmed forty/fifty years ago. Then were seeded down because it's HEL ground. Lot of blue grass, some clover, nothing very heat tolerant.
We bale most of our water ways. When we reshape and reseed water ways we don't use water way mix because it contains fescue.
I see you're a lot farther north than I expected. Probably to the tune of four hours straight north.
You'll see a little Timothy and orchard grass here but good ole k31 is king here. As ebenezer said, got to have the stock that can handle it. Too many using mr big name bull and wondering why they aren't getting results or just graining the crap out of them to get them to do the job they should do on forage.
 

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