We often hear of various colored cows referred to as a box of crayons. Buy these old one and done cows a person does have a good look at the cows but no idea what bull bred them. This year my calves are a real box of crayons. I have black cows with black calves and red cows with red calves. No surprise there. But I also have black cows with red calves and red cows with black calves. Four brockle faced Hereford cross cows with 2 black white face calves, a red brockle faced calf, and one with a straight Hereford colored calf. The two grey cows both have orange calves. There is a black Hereford cow with a solid black calf. A black cow with a grey calf. A blue roan cow with a black brockle face calf. An old style orange and white spotted simme cow with a black whitefaced calf. A yellow cow with a white calf. I am probably missing some of them. I have 13 cows yet to calf. They are 2 brockle faced Hereford cross cows, 2 brockle faced black white faced cows, 5 solid red cows, and 5 solid black cows. Who knows what color combinations are yet to come? It is like opening a Christmas present every day around here. Picture of a black cow with a red calf being photobombed by a black calf.
Calf color
- Thread starter webfoot
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gcreekrch
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It's called multi-culturalism.
Mountain Cowgirl
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You need to start a lottery. Show a photo of each cow and then give odds by color. A solid black cow for instance would have a 2 to 1 odds of having an all-white calf. You pay out 2 times the bet if an all-white calf is born. A solid black calf would be no payout, while a black and white might require you to pay back 25% of the bet, with a solid red calf a payback of 50%. A black with a white face would be a 10% payback while a red with a white face might be a 75% payback. Any solid-colored beefy cow that had a calf looking like a Holestin would be a 10 to 1 payout. With several thousand people taking 10 to 1 odds at $100 each, you could buy that ranch next door.
leanin' H
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We call those multi-colored cows herds "Easter Egg Cattle"! Looks like a bunch of Easter eggs. Good cows come in all shapes and colors. When ya realize the average age of a cow in the US is only 6, a great cow of any color that makes double digits is super rare. Webby has a knack and a talent with these cattle to make a profit after others have sent them to the sale barn. To me, there's a good lesson there for the rest of us- DONT GIVE UP ON CATTLE BECAUSE OF A HARD AND FAST NUMBER ON AGE!!!
Mountain Cowgirl
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They also might be called bovine Araucanas after the colored egg-laying chickens.
Faster horses
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Here we call them a 'rainbow herd'. (That was way before rainbows identified gay people.)
We used to sell our old cows to a neighbor who took really good care of them and got several
really good calves out of them. So yes, don't let age dictate anything as long as a cow is in good shape and her calves haven't shown HER age. In our country, many times gummer cows do better than broken mouth cows. We used to mouth our cows every fall, but we stopped going by how their mouth was. We knew their age so we just kept a good eye on the older ones.
We used to sell our old cows to a neighbor who took really good care of them and got several
really good calves out of them. So yes, don't let age dictate anything as long as a cow is in good shape and her calves haven't shown HER age. In our country, many times gummer cows do better than broken mouth cows. We used to mouth our cows every fall, but we stopped going by how their mouth was. We knew their age so we just kept a good eye on the older ones.
Yesterday it was a black cow with a red calf. Today it is a red cow with a red calf. And a black white face cow with a black white face calf. Trouble is the black white face calf is dead. Unknown causes? From the looks it never got up. Well the wife's bottle calf in the barn goes to work tomorrow. No more life of leisure with a bottle brought to him 3 times a day. Too late to get the cow in tonight so it is a morning job. We were gone most of the day. Church in the morning. Then had to drive over to Boise to find a new pair of boots that I can manage to get my poor beat up foot into.
deff
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Due to the drought, we are feeding a lot of wheat straw this winter and needed to sell down some. We shipped everything that would be 14 years or older at calving time. Ended up selling almost 30 head of old cows out of a 260 head herd. We usually just cull anything that lost a calf or is late, lame, bad attitude, bad bag or showing their age. I'm sure most of those old proven girls could have given someone 2 or 3 dandy calves before they were done!