Hi all. I am Haley from Missouri. This is my first post to the page because I just have a general question.
My fiancé has been raising Angus cattle for a handful of years now and runs a pretty organized operation. He turns his bull in with his cows in late spring/early summer and gets calves in the early spring, and now he is working on starting up his fall calvers as well. Anyway- Something that I want to try is introducing a nurse cow to the herd. I am reading that maybe a Jersey would be better?? But not sure on that?
I can not seem to find any for sale at all. I have a few questions though...
Would it be easier to:
1- Buy a bottle heifer and raise her and at that point I could handle her from day one and potentially have a gentle cow to work with? Although I do not know how hard it is to train them to become a NURSE COW
2- Buy an already started cow who has successfully raised some calves???? They are more expensive and you also don't know what you get sometimes.. But at least I would know/think that she is a trained and willing nurse cow
My plan for all this is--- I figure that this cow could be bred with the rest of the herd in late spring and she would calve at the same time as the beef cattle at which point she would raise her own calf as well as any orphaned calf that may come. But (fingers crossed) we never have any orphan calves then I would need to go to buy a little dairy calf and then she would raise her calf along with the dairy calf.
My plan is that I could hopefully sell one with the other calves and butcher the other. Like I said this is a new idea to me. Does this sound like something that is possible/do-able??
My fiancé has been raising Angus cattle for a handful of years now and runs a pretty organized operation. He turns his bull in with his cows in late spring/early summer and gets calves in the early spring, and now he is working on starting up his fall calvers as well. Anyway- Something that I want to try is introducing a nurse cow to the herd. I am reading that maybe a Jersey would be better?? But not sure on that?
I can not seem to find any for sale at all. I have a few questions though...
Would it be easier to:
1- Buy a bottle heifer and raise her and at that point I could handle her from day one and potentially have a gentle cow to work with? Although I do not know how hard it is to train them to become a NURSE COW
2- Buy an already started cow who has successfully raised some calves???? They are more expensive and you also don't know what you get sometimes.. But at least I would know/think that she is a trained and willing nurse cow
My plan for all this is--- I figure that this cow could be bred with the rest of the herd in late spring and she would calve at the same time as the beef cattle at which point she would raise her own calf as well as any orphaned calf that may come. But (fingers crossed) we never have any orphan calves then I would need to go to buy a little dairy calf and then she would raise her calf along with the dairy calf.
My plan is that I could hopefully sell one with the other calves and butcher the other. Like I said this is a new idea to me. Does this sound like something that is possible/do-able??
