Sunday Pic of the Day

[mdcrossbow]

George Patton childhood home
1754 estate , about a mile off the road. View of the back side of the home.

 

[geetar]

Brangus - hereford cross. The best in the business.

My dad hasn’t pulled a calf since he started using a Hereford bull to cross breed. That smaller head makes the difference.

 

[CowboyLeroy]

My dad hasn’t pulled a calf since he started using a Hereford bull to cross breed. That smaller head makes the difference.

I'm the opposite, in my experience herefords have the biggest block headed calves I've ever seen, but we run some pretty big framed cows, and brangus have pretty long slender heads so it helps

 

[shines@times]

My dad hasn’t pulled a calf since he started using a Hereford bull to cross breed. That smaller head makes the difference.

Among my youthful chore list was helping my father raise some beef cattle for family consumption. The day-old calves were all acquired at nominal costs ranging from, if I recall correctly, $2 to $6 each. The reason they were so cheap: they were all male first offspring from dairy cattle, primarily Holsteins, that had been bred as heifers to smaller breed bulls to get milk production started with easier births and fewer losses of the young mothers. Three of the five we raised were half Hereford, one was an Angus cross and one was even part Brahma.

I had heard that some dairy operators would simply kill those first calves--this was in the late 1950's--rather than bother with them; and some would give them away free. I never ask Dad why he paid if free calves were available; but I suspect it had to do with availability at the time that he had the property ready with fencing and calf shed. Somewhere online, I encountered comment that dairymen will give calves away or kill them even today. Do you know if that is a fact?

 

[mtmuley]

Shines, I worked at one of the biggest dairies in my part of Montana in my youth. In 1981 when I started there we sold bull calf Holsteins for about 30 bucks. mtmuley

 

[Gellar]

Queue the Jaws theme song.

 

[shines@times]

Shines, I worked at one of the biggest dairies in my part of Montana in my youth. In 1981 when I started there we sold bull calf Holsteins for about 30 bucks. mtmuley

Were the heifers still bred with smaller breeds such as Herefords in that era?

 

[mtmuley]

Were the heifers still bred with smaller breeds such as Herefords in that era?

All heifers were bred to Holstein bulls. mtmuley

 

[Slate]

Hudson Farm sporting clays. What a place

 

[fishing4sanity]

 

[rustednuts]

Az Quail morning

 

[corndog1]

 

[rtraverdavis]

 

[mdcrossbow]

My friend phil, who's oldet brother started teaching us to hunt @ 8-9 , 60 years later on the North West Branch of the Potomac River

 

[Dave N]

Taken yesterday, but I'm still here in Texas.

 

[wa_archer]

She wanted to go deer hunting but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t bringing a book. I did put in her pack. At 9yr old you do what it takes when they show interest.

 

[mdcrossbow]

View attachment 197941
She wanted to go deer hunting but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t bringing a book. I did put in her pack. At 9yr old you do what it takes when they show interest.

All 3 of my boys would being books. She'll do something with her life
.

 

[BAKPAKR]

 

[Sky guy]

 

[geetar]