September 13, 2008
Popcorn and the pygmy goat
I hoped to meet Popcorn today, but due to Blue Tongue restrictions, she wasn't able to come to Carlisle. Curious?
Popcorn is a three year old Irish Moiled x Jersey cow, well handled, nicely marked, used to being hand milked and in calf to an Irish Moiled bull. The perfect smallholder's cow. She was included in the catalogue for today's rare breed sale at Carlisle, but because of BT restrictions - she's in Scotland outside the BT protection zone and Carlisle is in it, she wasn't brought down. If she hadn't been sold, she couldn't have been taken home and she couldn't have been bought by anyone in Scotalnd or Ireland unless she was vaccinated - at least that's my understanding. So we only had photos of Popcorn - which is maybe just as well...
I had to hide my buyer number from Claire in case she bought Tottie, a castrated male pygmy goat. He was about the size of our dogs and very cute, and Claire did say he could sit on her knee on the way home but I made sure she didn't do anything rash! I do hope he went to a good home.
February 7, 2004
Thoughts of Cows
We don't have any cattle and don't have room for any. But that doesn't stop me musing over what might be, if the six numbers come up tonight. What started me musing about cows was an advertisement in this month's "Country Smallholding" selling two Jersey heifers. If we had more land and I had more time (two big "ifs", I grant you), I'd like to have a house cow. I like cows.
In my gap year, some twenty blah years, I worked on a commercial dairy farm near Glasgow. I'll not bore you with details, but the cows there were Holstein Friesians, which are black and white and pretty big. These are very specialised dairy cows. I was fortunate in that the people I worked for were excellent stockmen and I learned an awful lot. Of course, in the intervening years, I've forgotten some of it but I still remember filling my milk container (perk of the job) with fresh, creamy (skimmed off the top of the tank), unpasteurised milk.
With our own cow, we could make yogurt, butter, cheese, cream, feed whey to the pigs, grow our own beef...
Taking the musings a bit further, I had a look at the website of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Hugh F-W has Dexters, John Seymour recommends the Jersey, but I have to say the Kerry appeals to me. I like the idea of helping to conserve a rare breed and I like black cows. The Kerry's not too big either, yields well and produces decent beef. So, the Kerry it is!
Although, I did read an article tonight about South Devons. They sound pretty good too...