We are very late this year acquiring next year's cattle, but we have finally done so at last.
Next year, we'll be sending two beef heifers to the butcher instead of steers. Our beef rancher says he prefers the heifers to the steers as they have smaller bones and put on a nice fat layer on grass, so we're going to give it a go.
They are a little older than we usually buy; they're already past a year. They'll be about 2 1/2 when they're ready to head off to freezer camp, but they should taste just fine at that age.
They loaded really easily; our rancher had them in a nice tight little corral, and the trailer was the only easy way 'out' once he started herding them. Fortunately, on this very hot day, they were only a ten-minute drive from our place, so we were able to get them out of the trailer and into the shade and to a full tank of water very quickly.
They seemed pretty happy with their new situation.
We're blessed with some nice big trees in our field as well as next to it, so there's plenty of shade during our triple digit temperatures. We also had the water going along the whole back fence line, for extra cow cooling.
The boys are... big rowdy boys. They went just a tad bit berserk, which I rather anticipated after the bull episode. There was a fair amount of interest between all the residents of our pasture spaces.
The girls will be separated from the boys for at least a day or two, until everyone quits bellowing at each other through the fence.
They were pretty much all calmed down after the first couple of hours, but we'll keep them separated at least overnight, to let them all acclimate.
Mr. Caffeinated was getting rather tired of having to mow the fields, since the boys weren't eating it down fast enough. We're pretty happy to have these ladies on board!
