Stocker pictures

[WildRoseBeef]

I'll try not to get too carried away, because I tend to like to post more than 5 pics at a time. But here are some "older" pics of steers that came and went on the farm....

Checkin' me out

Kings of the hill

Follow Big Red

The meeting with me

Double trouble

The stag

The "show" steer

I've got more, but I don't want to give you folks with dial-up a head-ache waiting for the photos to load.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Nice looking animals. We do love pics here and your title says it has pictures so that's a warning to dialup people. The funny thing is that one of our bigger pic posters is on dialup.

 

[Thewife]

Nice critters!

Bruiser likes it when I'm downloading or uploading pictures, we play fetch!

 

[wynedot55]

yall sure did a great job with those feeder steers.

 

[WildRoseBeef]

Thanks, we make sure those stockers are good an' healthy, good enough to keep them happy, their bellies full and their coats nice and shiny.

Though the variation in temperments sure keep things interesting... Occaisonally we get a whole herd steers that are so flighty or too suspicious of you you can't even make a pet or two out of them, even if you try hard enough! Then other years we get herd with a handful of wild critters but the rest are real easy going, calm, laid-back animals that love to be hand-fed, and I can walk among them without having to be super careful to not spook anybody.

This fat guy

was one of those calm ones...not the type to get a scratch from me, but the type that was comfortable enough to stand arms-length away from me.

 

[wynedot55]

calm steers make more money than wild 1s.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

calm steers make more money than wild 1s.

Better meat. If an animal is wilded up when the deed is done the meat isn't as good.

 

[wynedot55]

right a wild steer cow bull or calf will be whats called a dark cutter.an have alot of blood in their meat.

 

[WildRoseBeef]

You bet. All thanks to the adrenaline coursing through the veins during a panic attack at having a handler get too far inside its flight-zone.

Calm cattle come with calm handling, but even with as much calm handling as possible there still is one wild one that would refuse to settle down and ends up getting the whole herd riled up. And these wild ones are a royal pain in the a$$.

And since the steers we get are all culled calves anyway, due to everything from conformation to temperment or other things, it's really hard to see what kind of animals come off the truck until they've been there for a few weeks and they've gotten accustomed to you.

LOL I've come to loath calves that give me the "deer in the headlights" look when I'm in the pen and they're as close as 50 yards away...never really paid much attention to those types before until I started learning more about the difference between the calm types and the leap-over-the-fence-like-a-deer-as-soon-as-they-see-you types.

Here's a story: One day after we had this major thunderstorm with hail and quite the light show of lightning & thunder and of course wind, went out to check the calves and fences to see if any damage had been done and noticed that 3 bulls and a steer with an abcess in his shoulder were missing. Couldn't find out where they'd gone so we took a drive around the pasture to see if the rest of the big herd was missing. Course they were all there, and quite happy to see us, I must say. Sighted the 4 muskateers, and me and dad decided to head out across the fence (the 4 POS's were in the neighbor's field), and see if we can turn them around and head them back home. Dirty SOB's took one look at us and headed in the opposite direction. It was then when we were chasing them on foot (totally forgot about the feed buckets, though doubt if they would work anyway) that I started wishing we were riding horses instead. Anyway, they head out onto the road, and take off at a run to the end of the neighbor's pasture on the same side of the fence as the road. Unfortunately the fence was temporary electric, not electrified and the leader of the pack plowed through towards the neighbor's cowherd on the other side. All me and dad could do was walk back to the neighbors and tell them that 4 calves had got in, could they help separate them and pen 'em up so we could bring them home? Didn't get a chance to bring them home until a few weeks later (got busy with field stuff)...dad went to bring them home and had some fun (along with the neighbor) getting them hauled onto the truck...one of the bulls (i think it was the limo, if i remember correctly) tried to scale a 7' fence and just about succeeded if the fence was a little shorter and he a bit bigger. They weren't allowed back into the little pasture for the rest of their days on the farm. Turned out that what spooked them was the top of the spruce tree on the corner of the corral snapped in half and must've landed on someone, obviously scaring the livin' daylights out of them. It didn't help that they were born wild either.

So I think you can figger out pretty quick why I said I want to go cow-calf instead of back to stocker.. Seems you got more control as to what kind of cows you want/get, especially temperment wise.

Oh, and one more thing: cattle aren't the only things I like to take pictures of, I have a number of other more scenic pics I might like to share sometime....

 

[Farmer Kitty]

You're right about the look in the eyes, it tells alot about an animal.

You've read the picture thread. Now it sounds to me like you have pics to add to it too!