Who is buying cows?

[cswilson]

A bit off topic but we had some Buff Orpington chickens a bit back-they just ran around the yard-roosted in the barn in winter and pecked amongst the cows-the kids had also bought some white layers at the same time-they hardly made the summer but those old Buffs lived tobe 6 or 7 years old. The kids would find nests full of eggs in the mangers. If factory pork and poultry production everbecomes impossible the heritage breeds will be what we need to turn to. Our experience was the same with hogs-my son would buy a couple sows every spring-farrow them-then sell the piglets in the fall and butcher the sows for our deerr sausage. The last ones he bought were high performance pigs from a hutterite colony-I'm sure they worked fine in a confinement barn but they were hard done by raising their pigs in a farm enviroment. I think it would be fun to keep a breeding group of a rare breed of animal going-there are worse hobbies to have.

[coppertop]

something like buying show cattle and putting them out with regular cattle !

I would doubt that any 'factory' raised animal would have an immune system capable of dealing with everyday germs etc.

[cowman]

Well emerald we were in the purebred business, calved in Jan/Feb and the old bull buyers weren't keen on bulls with no ears! I never built the barn, but did add the room and fixed it up over the years.
Won't go into how smart or dumb winter calving was, because I'll get ate for breakfast...but at the time you needed age and size to sell bulls? Different times than now for sure!
Also every bull had to be halter broke and ringed! No farmer wanted a bull he couldn't rope in the field and lead out of the pasture.