Cattle Gate Hardware

Courtesy Lora H. You sent in a lot of great snapshots—both sweet and funny. Courtesy Lee B. Here are some of our favorites. Courtesy Stacey B. Get tips and advice for keeping cows on your farm: How to Milk a Cow Did You Ever Want to Ride a Cow?

Courtesy Hasheem B. As we continue our celebration of Baby Animal Month on HobbyFarms.com, we hope these photos from our readers' hobby farms will bring a bit of happiness to your day.

“I want animals to come to me when I come into the pasture, not run away from me,” Lemke says. The microbial population of their stomachs will be adapted to this diet, they'll be able to efficiently convert forage to pounds, and they'll have the strong...

While adding a family dairy cow with its traditional twice-daily milkings to your farmstead will surely add another chore to your to-do list, it can be a great way to keep tabs on what's in your kitchen's dairy products and help you transition to a more...

Feed One downside of fall calving is the expense and logistics required for feeding lactating dams through the winter. Dark-faced breeds, like Suffolks , are also a challenge but are known to be a little easier to breed in the off season.

During the procedures, out walked Grandma, a solemn elderly woman in a bright-red sweater carrying a plastic bucket filled with water. You see, springtime is the season not only for babies but also for castrating said babies.

Also, if you don't own a tractor with a front-end loader, you'll probably need square bales. Having more docile breeds that are used to humans—yet another bonus to the rotational grazing system—will make the farmer's need for good outbuildings a little...

A stationary, V-shaped chute can handle a variety of cattle sizes with no adjustment. Bud box systems are simple and economical, and they work well for cattle. Excerpted from Temple Grandin's Guide to Working with Farm Animals © by Temple Grandin, photography...

This results in a better n-6:n-3 ratio that is preferred by the nutritional community,” the study states. However, this difference in marbling has a corresponding difference in tenderness, a hurdle some just aren't willing to jump over.

According to the nonprofit Sustainable Table, “it also exposes the animals to high levels of toxins from decomposing manure and can create ideal conditions for diseases to spread.

“These cattle helped my family survive for generations and there's no reason they can't still help us survive today, when grain and fuel prices are having such an economic impact on farm production.

Though some vaccines instruct delaying intake of colostrum in order to allow the vaccine to take effect, the window for antibody absorption from colostrum is short, and this delay may negatively affect the calf's health.

A simple rule of thumb is to increase the amount of feed 1 percent for every degree of coldness below the appropriate lower critical temperature. In the short term, cattle can make behavioral changes to alter the temperature in their immediate environment,...

However, older animals need more fiber. If cattle drink from a tub, tank or trough, keep it full enough, clean it regularly and make sure it doesn't freeze in winter or get too hot or mossy in summer.

The growing market for grassfed, pasture-raised meats, the appeal of producing food by feeding meat animals from your land and the health benefits of grassfed meat are compelling reasons to make a small-scale farmer take on the grassfed-beef challenge.

Have you ever thought of riding a bovine buddy? “Don't buy a calf from a sale barn,” says dairy farmer Lori Armstrong of Thayer, Mo. “Cattle at a sale might look perfectly healthy but you can bring home a lot of disease that way.

The diet during this time can vary depending on your farm and your production goals; it may even be that you keep the growing and finishing diets the same. Her intake will decrease, and the quality of the feed she is consuming can decrease as well.

This is because, after the cow is down, in a few more hours, she will become comatose. The calving process may take a few hours—in this species, you shouldn't expect things to happen quickly, which is much different from horses, as we'll learn next...

“If a mother cow is not a family pet and you are unsure of her personality, protect yourself by getting the calf and yourself separated from the mother cow,” Howley says. To prevent the paste from getting on the cow's belly or udder when the calf...

Here are six things you can do to prepare your farm for calving season. Calculate when you expect your cows' calving season to begin, and check the cows at least twice a day for signs of labor: udders filling with milk, vulva very loose and sometimes...

This is especially helpful during winter grazing or times of drought . This means you will get less milk. Working with your veterinarian or beef or dairy specialist to learn the evaluation techniques will not only give you a chance to learn the scoring...

A good vaccination protocol is tailored to your farm's risks and management program. When you want to skip a feeding, you can let the calf suckle rather than milking the cow yourself.

(Dairy calves are typically used to produce veal, as the breeds don't beef up in an economically viable way.) The Belfair crossbreed is special, because a Dexter, with her small frame, can't deliver calves of large breeds without risking catastrophic...

“It became very calm, very quiet. He adds, “Having a calf nursing six to eight times a day plus OAD milking is going to be more effective than milking TAD, as many do.” Share-milkers can do this with ease.

Mankind migrated to the city. But other mini breeds (such as Miniature Highlands, Longhorns and some of the International Miniature Cattle Breeders Society and Registry breeds) are modern creations developed by crossing small standard-size cattle with...

When planning your calving pens, make sure that the wintering pen runoff doesn't accumulate in the calving pens. While these tips will help you set up a biosecurity plan, you should talk to your local large-animal vet and have a herd health audit done...

While the plant can grow up to seven feet tall and four feet wide, it rarely, if ever, needs to be staked.The kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate flower blooms in three inch long spiky clusters that hang pendulously in shades of red to white to magenta.freestar.queue.push(function()...