Hey Pretty Ladies! | Photos From The Pasture

This last weekend Mark and I spent our Saturday afternoon at the farm, like we do almost every weekend. Mark does not do townhome life well and every single chance he gets, he scoots away to the farm to the walk the pigs, wash heifers or spend some time in the tractor. And our weekends, usually always involve a trip to both of our parents to check on calves and help around the farm.

So, while Mark worked on breaking a new heifer, I grabbed my camera and snapped some pictures of the cows out on pasture. Because a majority of these cows spent their younger life in the show ring, they are super laid back and they easily let me wander around and take pictures. Plus, if a show heifer ever does get aggressive and protective after she has her first calf, she usually doesn't stick around in the herd for long. It's just not safe.

As a result, I was able to get a lot of fun pictures. In fact, I think it was more like 100+ fun pictures, but in our house, a certain someone could look at pictures of cattle for hours......so it worked out okay.

Some of my favorites are below and I added captions with some basic explanations. I know a lot of you who read my blog come from an ag background, but as Kate from At Home When I'm With You reminded me this week, not everybody does, so I tried to keep it simple! Let me know if you have any questions!

{In my opinion, beef cows have the good life. Give them sunshine, green grass and some water and they will happily lounge the day away. Check out the baby calf between the cows -- doesn't that look like bliss?!?}

{The front two are my favorite calves out of Molly this year. Molly is our donor cow who consistently produces great offspring, so we collect her embryos to put into other cows so they can raise a calf for her. It's kind of like a surrogate mother and it's an extremely efficient & quick way to improve our herd's genetics. These two calves are full sisters out of the bull, Silveira Style, and they're also full sisters to the heifer Mark gave me for our wedding. I can't wait to see how they are looking in the fall!}

{the calves were so curious about my camera and kept striking poses for me. Must mean a show career ahead?}

{"Hey, wait, I am not finished!" -- After spending about an hour out in the pasture, I decided these calves are spoiled rotten. They never get denied supper and you should she see how aggressive they are when they are nursing. Gentle isn't in their vocabulary when they are hungry. I hope it's not like that when I become a mom! This heifer calf was born in late February and she will nurse off her mother until she is "weaned" in September or early October.}

{can you tell she's one of my favorites!? Mark's family raises Angus (a breed of cattle that are normally all black), so when we get any color in the herd from our crossbred cows, we have a soft spot for them. I've labeled her our red-headed step child!}

{Eli is another favorite. Eli is a bull calf out of Matt's show heifer last year. We always breed our heifers to calving-ease bulls so they don't have any problems having their first calf, but Eli redefined calving ease. He was TINY. Luckily he is growing fast and Eli will either eventually be sold as a bull so he can breed other cows or he will become a steer (a castrated male) and we will either A. show him or B. raise him for meat.}

{Here's the Style calf that I mentioned above getting her supper. A good productive cow has one calf each year. Typically, she will have her calf in the early spring, nurse the calf all summer on pasture and then we wean her in the early fall and the whole process will happen again the next year. A cow's gestation cycle is just like a human - nine months!}

So the day in a life of cow-calf pair at Purfeerst Farms is pretty cushy, huh? 

Like I said, if you have any questions, just let me know. Next time, I will try to get some pictures of our Hereford cows at my parents. I used to be one of those people who would fight that my Hereford cattle were better than Angus any day, but since I married in, I am a lot more open minded! :)

XoXo,