Category: Family

This time of year, we are preparing for winter. Hay is in the barn and calves are hitting the ground. But, of utmost importance is the planting of winter pastures. Our cattle do their best growing on winter rye grass during the cooler temps of winter in the south. So it’s time to start breaking it up!

Some of the pastures can be “over seeded,” which means they are planted by the seed drill and no other work is needed. But for some of the fields, the prep work is more intense and takes longer than the actual planting.

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It’s breeding season on the farm and we are in full swing! We have been super busy with cattle breeding. It’s always fun to plan for the next year’s calf crop, but it is also a little stressful! Should we or shouldn’t? That is always the question. Who to breed who to? What bull should we use? It also seems that we, along with every other cattle breeder, are always chasing new bulls. Who’s the next “great” bull? Who’s new?

We put a lot of time and homework into choosing the “right” bull to breed to each cow. It takes a lot of planning and we try to have a wide variety. It does always seem like we find ourselves chasing new bulls, new pedigrees and trying to make something great happen. This year we had a couple of different options and some of those made us stop and really think. One of the items we like to look at is progeny. What do past calves of the animal look like? Are there a lot of calves registered to a particular bull? If there aren’t, it makes you wonder why not?

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