Betsy's Brood

So, an update:  Betsy's no longer with us.  Nor are any of the cows.  Or the goats.  That long, ugly story, is here: 

https://beggsnachin.webstarts.com/blog/post/farm-is-ending

Drama, much?  I've got a LOT on my plate and I just can't.  So she went to a different home with our friend John, that raises organic Highlander beef.  He says he is gonna get a calf out of her and milk her.  He sent me pics of his kids lovin' all over Betsy, which makes me glad.  Betsy lives to be brushed and snuggled.  She was a friendly cow.   Anyways, for your enjoyment, I've left her pics up and her story if you feel like reading it. 

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Oh, Betsy, Betsy, Betsy!  Where do we begin with Betsy... she's a pain in the butt.  But we love her.  Betsy came to us in 2018, when I was waiting to hear back from a gal on Craigslist about a mini Jersey cow.  Mini, because I'm short, older, and I don't feel like getting beat up by a big cow.  I did that in my growing up years and it hurts a lot more, now.  Well, the gal wasn't getting back to us, and we went to the livestock auction to kill time, and hubby went and got a number so he could bid, and I knew we would be coming home with one of these big, giant cows.  So I at least tried to help him find one that wasn't skeletal.  We were sitting through the "hamburger line", cows that were kind of in a bad way, and were being sold off for hamburger.  Betsy was actually looking pretty good, wasn't lame, and had a nice looking udder. She came out of the gate and my husband said next to me: 

"She's so pretty!"  The man that never wanted to have animals and do farming.  So that was it.  My husband brought home this giant, Guernsey cow.   She HATES being milked.  Acts like a total jerk, in fact.  She is super nice any other time, but milking time? Forgetaboutit.  But she stole my goats' babies in 2018 and nursed them, and also surprised us with a calf in 2019 that we didn't know she had hiding in there.  She has been bred back with a Red Angus in 2019.  We figure we can at least get a calf out of her, because she ain't gonna be milking any time soon, and we can't seem to get rid of her.  She is boss of the herd and makes all the other ones wait for her to eat first.  She is a character, and slobbers a lot. And she is a good mama.  Being a former dairy herd cow, she got to keep hercalf until he is grown up, probably for the first time in her life. It is not cost effective, what we're doing with Betsy, but I feel good about it.  And her calf is HUGE.  He is big and beefy, staying on mama's milk until she says it's time.  

So the other calves... there were originally 2 bottle calf steers Big Boy, and Jersey Boy, a year old as of July 2019, which we will be scheduling for the mobile slaughter unit to come and process in Fall of 2020 (Done now).  We originally named them after my daughter's old boyfriends, but when we started to actually like the calves, that no longer became applicable for the calves.  It seemed an injustice, really.  I  will be updating this page when that time gets closer (Also done).  Our plans are to offer half, whole, or quarter from what we have extra after we feed us, for sale, with pickup from the butcher. ( Did that in 2020, just before the Covid shutdown, and it went well. Will be doing it again in 2022, if we have enough after our family is fed. That's the plan. )

These guys are fed a minimal Excel Barnyard Buffet ration from Lael's Landscape Supply in Centralia (we always support local business, first), and plenty of forage and local hay from our neighbors' field across the street and down the road from us. .  No feedlot for these guys! Grass fed beef!  We find that the growing young ones and lactating animals do better with a little grain ration, and those maintaining can do all right on just grass, depending on how hard winter is, and what their body condition is.  I'm not going to let my animals get super bony for the sake of the "grass fed" model.  That would not be humane.  

And humane, let's talk about that.  Some folks are ok with the auction... I used to be.  I'm not ok with it now.  I realize that some farms have to operate within costs and that the pressure of govt' regulations plus the unwillingness of consumers to pay exhorbant prices for their product puts them in the wringer.  So I'm not here to knock traditional farming methods.   You gotta do what you gotta do.  I won't be doing it that way. 

We shoot for as organic as possible, and we spoil these animals rotten, feed them up good, give them names, and when the "day" comes, they are settin' fat and sassy in the pasture, and the last thought in their life is "Oh look. Grain."  Betsy was so terrified when we brought her home, that this humane kill is very important to me, that our animals are not shipped off to some kill pen, and then spend their last hours terrified and exposed to who knows what...  We think it affects the taste of the meat when adrenaline is in there, and it just doesn't seem right.  It is important to me, that these lowliest of creatures that we eat, at least be treated with kindness and dignity.  Therefore, they will be dispatched here, then taken to the butcher, where pickup is from the butcher, per state and federal laws.

Finns Custom Meats in Onalaska was our butcher in 2020, and A & L Mobile Slaughter.  We were very pleased with both of them, and they did a lot of hand holding with us first-timers, for which we were very grateful. 

It would be cool if people could get on the phone repeatedly with our government and try to get them to ease up on those laws a bit so we, as consumers, can make our own decisions on where our food comes from, but that is a political discussion that I will not enter into here. 

So- enough useless information to read, yet?  Pics on the right, here, of Betsy, the calves, and all the fun shenanigans that they do. The farm blog in the drop down menu above has pics and videos as well. 

Regards,

P. Colvin, Beggs n Achin