The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: sum on December 17, 2009, 03:34:18 pm
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I work as a freelance writer and am pulling together a piece on keeping house cows. Would love to talk to some real owners! I have so far interviewed quite a few Jersey owners and one Dexter smallholder, but would love to talk to owners of other breeds. I have also heard rumours of Highland house cows! Can this be true? I can be contacted on [email protected].
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Not yet - but we've just bought 12 acres and will have one soon (ish).
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Hi Rosemary,
A highland house cow? Or a different breed. Either way, I would also be interested to find out why the idea of a house cow is increasingly popular! What has inspired you to consider getting a house cow?
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My plan at the moment is to get two Friesian x Limousin heifer calves and bucket rear them, so they are nice and tame, run them on, put them in calf to a beef bull maybe at 15 months, maybe later and keep on for our house and sell one with a calf at foot. Long term plan, you see - and not completely firmed up.
Why? I like cows, mostly. I worked on a dairy farm and I like cows. Also, we like milk and dairy products, and beef; we raise chickens, pigs and sheep so hte cow fills the gap, so to speak.
Part of me would like a Jersey or one of the rare breeds, but I might try my plan and if it works, fine, if not I'll sell my two suckler cows and start again.
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Why are they called house cows? They don't live in the house. I have house dogs and kennel dogs. They swap around from time to time so they don't become too institutionalised, but I don't believe I'd have a cow in the house ;D ;D
A friend of mine wrote a book called a Cow in my Parlour (ISBN 0-9538295-1-0 - ) Peggy Grayson - it's an amusing look at farming in the 1950's, her husband started out as an actor and gave it up to go into farming albeit with some trepidation. Peggy, as well as being a top Dog Judge is also a National Judge of Mountain and Moorland Ponies. I can lend you the book if you like, Rosemary. She also wrote four on spaniels and one on native ponies, as well as these general 'look at life' books from her own experiences
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When we lived in our last house, we had a hand reared Irish Moiled,
it used to stand in the pantry looking into the kitchen whenever the door was left open,
it once battered the door in during a storm and was found stood by the fire. :cow: :cow: :D
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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because it supplied all the milk butter and cheese. and of course meat to. thats why the cows the size of the shetland were used. not massive eaters either. if you only had a limited supply of fodder you don't want it all going on one big cow. our croft still has the old byre attached with the raise end door for the poo to be cleared out. it must have been very smelly.
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I like the smell of cows but not enough to live with it.
I've decided to revert to Plan A and get a Shetland cow. I know you're supposed to keep two but does a calf at foot count as number two or does it have to be another adult?
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yes it does. the idea was that the calf was raised until 18 months then either slaughtered or sold. the mother would by then have a new calf. you need to make sure that you get one thats been hand milked. there is no reason not to cross them with a beef breed but be prepared for lots of meat.
they can be very strong minded and can remain productive for a long time.
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"Yes it does" - the calf counts as the second beast?
I suppose they will be like most Scottish breeds - independent! I woudl like to mate it to a Shetland bull, to keep the pure status.
Will start my research in earnest now.
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try up here. you can get them reasonably priced. are you in a crofting area if so the bull scheme should help. good luck they are ment to be great family animals.
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tp://www.shetlandcattle.org.uk/index.htm