I took Hope into the channel when I got her home, and introduced her to Ruthie and Amba. She immediately knocked the stuffing out of Ruthie, showing her she’s the new queen on our farm, and wouldn’t let Amba nurse. Her previous owner was surprised because Hope loves babies and will nurse any calf.
There was a large oozing puddle next to a tree in the channel, and coming back after letting Hope loose, I attempted to step over it and fell, grazing my side against the tree, pulling my hamstring (a first for me) and re-hurting my rotor cuff. That put a real damper on my ability to do farm chores. I couldn’t close the back of the horse trailer, which pleased the chickens as they could root through all the cow poop and eat the corn. Even had a girl laying eggs in the front section where the saddles are meant to go 🤣.
I thought it would take a few days to get Hope into the milking routine, but she slotted right in, so had milk for our herdshare owners sooner than expected. A few days later, Hopes’ previous owner offered me her heifer calf, Annabelle, and when I agreed to buy her, delivered her a day later.
So now we have 2 cows, 2 heifer calves and 2 bulls. Herbie didn’t know about Annabelle for about 2 weeks, and when I told him, said I needed to sell 2 other cows. I booked a beef in for processing in mid November, thinking it’d be Thor, the last Scottish Highland here, but have subsequently thought Oliver if he becomes aggressive, or even Amba if she’s preggars. She’s far to small to carry a calf to term and successfully birth it. She’ll only be about 300 lbs of actual meat, but she’ll be tender and I haven’t been able to sell her. I have her father here, so she needs to go. Oliver is polled, and not related to Ruthie or Hope. I wouldn’t mind Thor making ½ Scottish Highland calves, they’re delicious. So it’s all still up in the air. I also have 1 ram Spring lamb that could be butchered, but he can carry to next year when he’s a little bigger.
Unfortunately our ram, Hershey up and died too, so I started looking around for a replacement, and man, are they expensive !! $500 for another Forest Clun ram. I like them as their natures are very calm, they’re big so are upgrading the size of my lambs and they have lovely fibre.