Bottle Babies?

[AZChins]

I live on open range cattle land. The rancher brings in cattle regularly...sometimes we get a load of mama cows, sometimes it's the younger females. This time it appears that we have a bunch of juveniles running around. They are not scared of me at all. Most of the time the cattle runs away when I am around, but these guys just scoot a bit and then go right back to what they were doing. They arrived a few days ago.

The cattle raid the compost heap outside where I had the grand idea that I would try to compost chin waste. That never happens because they eat most of what I dump out there. They eat all the hay cubes, the chin pellets, most of the shavings and any hay. I caught one of them eating a piece of cardboard that ended up in the waste barrels.

Here they are...they are very cute...little mini cows. I think they may have all been bottle raised by the way they act...plus, there's no mamas around and they're pretty young.

 

[Christina Noraas]

If they come closer to you and wan to be petted and stuff they were probably bottle fed babies. We use to buy babies in bulk and bottle feed them a couple years back, I hate calves because of this no matter how cute they are, the more tame they are the more curious which means more stuff they'll destroy. However the real cuddley ones are the best.

They don't look very young I'd say about a year and half more or less. We take our calves off the mom, lets say that they were born in the summer we take them off in the winter, winter babies are taken off late summer. Other wise we start getting cross breeding and won't be bought at the cattle barn for as much as we want especially since our bulls are Angus certified those who buy the cattle don't want a herferd angus breeding with another herferd, charlee (sp), or angus.

It looks like you have holstiens (sp) and jerseys at your house, I love jerseys they're so easy to tame and just playful in general we have a small pen that holds about 20 of them at a time and we generally keep it full and they watch over the yard and if something goes on they just stare in the direciton of it and my mom knows where to look, I feed butterscotch cadies to ours.

Sorry about the ramble. Cattle are interesting to watch, I hope they don't eat too much of your compost pile!

 

[AZChins]

They're pretty little. Maybe about 3.5 feet high...not like that monsters that usually are here.

I know that you NEVER pet on calves, ever. They become friendly and tame and then try to get in the house and they will try to play when they are older and big and could really hurt people.

They can eat whatever they want out there...they are far from the house and aren't licking the windows on my car...so I am good with it!

 

[monarch]

AAHHHH that's just SO CUTE!

How lucky you are to live in such a beautiful, open area, surrounded by animals and nature!

 

[Christina Noraas]

We've never had any of our cattle hurt any one because they were tame and trying to play, the only time someone has been hurt is when they're coming out of a trailer, they got spooked and ran through the fence or they became mean and then charged someone.
No matter what you do when you bottle feed a calf they're going to become friendly and tame. Becaues you essentially become their mother and when ever they see a human they're going to think just that.
I raised a calf from the bottle because her mother died and I eventually brought her to the fair and I would end up sleeping on her during the day waiting for judging. Even though I haven't had every day contact with her for the past 4 years she's still as tame as could be. I can still take her for wallks on her harness with out any issue.

Haha, I have never heard of a cow trying to get into the house, we've had one seriously tiny and sick calf in the house in the dead middle of winter in our basement to save the poor thing from freezing to death because we don't have multipule warming houses for them like many farmers around her do. But that was the only incident generally when they get out of their fence they just want to run around.

Personally I would rather have a friendly tame cow than a mean one, a friendly one won't charge you for no reason a mean one would. Chris my step dad was stranded in a hay bale ring for 3 hours once because a mean cow charged him and chased him in to one.


From what I can tell from the pictures I still don't think they're that young we ween cattle smaller than that, their height doesn't matter it's their weight that people are going to be looking at for buying. As soon as our cattle can drink on their own out of a 5 gallong bucket of water for 3 months it's out the the feild. The longer you keep them in a barn and in pens the more chances you have of them escaping and possibly hurting someone depending on how your barn is set up because when calves see the outside and they get excited they RUN fast

 

[AZChins]

I had one little bull that I used to scratch on when he was small and he got to be a bit of a monster with chasing me around when I was outside. And, he tried to come inside. He was born in our front yard.

I don't know much about them since they aren't mine. They're just so little munchkin cow cows. Normally they don't let mean cows roam around, I just like for them to be a little scared of me so that I can shoo them away! I don't like for them to just scootch a little and then just creep back!

 

[Christina Noraas]

Oh my goodness! That's horrible! I'm glad nothing like that has never happened to us!

 

[AZChins]

I keep reminding myself when there are calves outside that I cannot be playing with them or petting them. They grow up and get giant! I'm a lot smaller than them and they can hurt me.

Still, the little new calves are always so cute. Those little nosies and eye...awwww... I'll have to get pictures of them whenever I see them in the yard again.

 

[addictedtochins]

Tell them you are a vegetarian, I'm sure they wouldn't hurt you after knowing that. Mmm this thread makes me want steak!

 

[AZChins]

How could little cows make anyone want a steak? Besides, look what they are eating...there's a lot of chin poo in there. Do you want a steak made of chin poos?

 

[3CsMommy]

It's all just hay, some is just more processed than the rest. Think of it as Astronaut-style cud.

 

[minrex]

It looks like you have holstiens (sp) and jerseys at your house, I love jerseys they're so easy to tame and just playful in general we have a small pen that holds about 20 of them at a time and we generally keep it full and they watch over the yard and if something goes on they just stare in the direciton of it and my mom knows where to look, I feed butterscotch cadies to ours.

Looks to me like they're Brahman crosses. Brahmans and Brahman crosses are very common in the southern and southwestern states. Look at their ears, their coat patterns and that extra skin (called a dewlap) they've got hanging off their briskets. That screams Brahman.

 

[Megan]

Susan I am so jealous of where you live! I'd love to live on the open range. I cannot wait until we get the farm fixed up enough that we can get some cattle in. Hopefully within the next few years!

 

[AZChins]

Most of the bulls are Brahman around here or so I have been told. There's some reason why the cattle ranchers use them...I forget why. All I know is that they like to bring in bulls of that type.

The whole little herd is hanging close together on my property. I think there's a storm coming in...the cows always seem to do that when we have rain or snow coming in. There's that little white and black cow...she's so cute! But, I will not go near them or touch them because I don't want them to get too overly friendly...again.

 

[AZChins]

I went out to get something out of my work shed and I have a yard with 15 mini cows! They're not scared of me at all, so I am going to have to wait until they are done raiding the rain water stock tanks. They don't respond to me telling them to get...oh well.

I got pictures of them. They really are cute. Even though they are making that hideous cow drinking noise that just echos through the house all the way from outside! It's our fault for not having a fence.

My favorite of all of them is the little white and black cow cow. She looks like she got into some black paint that she stuck her head and feet into. I really want to go scratch on her head and feed her something fun...but I need to not do that because when she gets bigger she will be bugging me for stuff to eat!

 

[cindyv3737]

They are adorable! I love cows. It would be very hard for me not to run out and give them all hugs. Susan that little black and white is too much. Those pictures make me want a cow.