Highlands & other breeds...

[M-J-G]

@Juggler how bad is your land?
If you can plough it I don't see any real good comings
from hill type native cows as they'll just end up being balls of fat.
Low keep animals are meant to run on poor land and bad grass.
All you need is an easy calving strains with good tidy bagged cows, which are available in every breed.

I'd go polled too, one less job to waste your Saturday off doing.

 

[FE35]

Shetland’s would be worth a consideration. Smaller & hardy, out winter well, lots of colour ways for interest & are friendly & docile. Another advantage is large pelvis so cross to continentals well - helps get over the ‘hobby farm stigma’!! Even tho that’s what I am

 

[Jaffa Cakes]

Irish moiles?

 

[steveR]

Irish moiles?

Beautiful looking animals.

 

[Ysgythan]

Disadvantage is they are BIG cows which goes against teh OP's need for outwintering stock, unless he is on sand...?

Advantage is a decent commercial offspring.

Shall we say it’s easy to avoid the bigger cows. Plenty of the compact type out there, and they’re the cheaper ones, and the IPs system would be self limiting.

 

[Ysgythan]

https://www.britishwhitecattle.co.uk/

Lunatics

 

[Woolless]

Shall we say it’s easy to avoid the bigger cows. Plenty of the compact type out there, and they’re the cheaper ones, and the IPs system would be self limiting.

Did you say that a lot are getting out of Longhorns? What's the story with that?

 

[Ysgythan]

Lunatics

Also the reason I didn’t suggest Murray Grays, although would happily fill my freezer with Oakley Burgers…

 

[Ysgythan]

Did you say that a lot are getting out of Longhorns? What's the story with that?

Me? Don’t think so. He’s selling bulls to Genus now and the Holstein boys love them for the Butilaar (?) scheme.

 

[Juggler]

@Juggler how bad is your land?
If you can plough it I don't see any real good comings
from hill type native cows as they'll just end up being balls of fat.
Low keep animals are meant to run on poor land and bad grass.
All you need is an easy calving strains with good tidy bagged cows, which are available in every breed.

I'd go polled too, one less job to waste your Saturday off doing.

We're on clay which is mostly good grass growing land, which is great except I'm renting that out!
The bit I was thinking of is a fenced off outcrop which is rocky, loads of shelter, dry areas and a couple of boggy areas, plenty of grass, probable too much for a few head but I usually graze it off with a mob of cattle from my renter in the summer anyway. I used to feed my AA's there until I brought them in when the rest of the place had started to go wet in the back end so it would be ok for a couple of cows all year.

 

[JP1]

Did you say that a lot are getting out of Longhorns? What's the story with that?

Thought I read the blue black ones were frowned upon so making them cheaper to buy to get started






But don’t tell everyone

 

[Ysgythan]

Thought I read the blue black ones were frowned upon so making them cheaper to buy to get started






But don’t tell everyone

Not good for showing

 

[Woolless]

Me? Don’t think so. He’s selling bulls to Genus now and the Holstein boys love them for the Butilaar (?) scheme.

That's what I thought. Must have picked you up wrong

 

[ImLost]

Shetland’s would be worth a consideration. Smaller & hardy, out winter well, lots of colour ways for interest & are friendly & docile. Another advantage is large pelvis so cross to continentals well - helps get over the ‘hobby farm stigma’!! Even tho that’s what I am

Do you currently have shetlands? Drop some pics on here and info, be interested to know more about them.

 

[delilah]

Lunatics

lol. Calved this morning, soft as butter.

 

[Old Tip]

Highlands and Whitebreds here, both great cattle but I would choose the Whitebred for ease of management

 

[Old Tip]

lol. Calved this morning, soft as butter.

View attachment 978194

View attachment 978195

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What breed are those ?
British Whites

 

[crofteress]

Highlands have big thick teats and really bad feet , two traits that don’t get noticed in the show ring . They can also turn very protective at calving . You get nothing for them at the mart . They hide the calves and the calves are tiny so they can’t get in these thick teats .

 

[Ysgythan]

I don’t know what I’m chopsing about anyway, I gave in a fortnight ago and bought a Highland cow…

 

[Old Tip]

Highlands have big thick teats and really bad feet , two traits that don’t get noticed in the show ring . They can also turn very protective at calving . You get nothing for them at the mart . They hide the calves and the calves are tiny so they can’t get in these thick teats .

Guess your not keen