DAPNET Forums Archive › Forums › Draft Animal Power › Oxen › Devons and such
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carl ny.
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- October 6, 2012 at 4:56 pm #44101
Kevin Cunningham
ParticipantSo I am really starting to wonder about my cattle addiction. After never having any interactions with live cattle now I can’t seem to get enough. I am starting to consider transitioning most of our available livestock space and time towards raising cattle. I am also interested in breeds for oxen. Being that I am in a remote part of California what is the practicallity of importing either some devon, durham, or other good ox breed. I know I can just raise what is available locally, and I am fond of my jerseryXholsteins, but I am curious as to what others think about the harebrained idea of traveling very long distances to get cattle that aren’t common around here. I don’t know if it would be worth the cost and risk to transport cattle across the country. I know it is done all the time but from what I have read it is extremely stressful for the cattle. Plus I am not sure about the idea of trying to raise registered animals, this is not something we have done in the past but I am curious about. Anyhow I am just looking for some advice from y’all. Am I crazy?
October 7, 2012 at 12:50 am #75157Droverone
ParticipantHow far is too far?
1600 miles is my limit
Know yoursOctober 7, 2012 at 1:01 am #75163Anonymous
InactiveKevin Cattle are addictive I have worked with them most of my life and fourty years later I still enjoy them. Like that old saying
“Find something you like to do and you`ll never work a day in your life” Find a breed you think you might like you work with and go for it, I never worked with oxen but I never thought of milking as a job, that was the fun part.
Some people will tell you that registered/purebreed cattle are hard to raise and such but nothing could be further from the truth, sometimes they may cost more to buy but not always.Some claim that cross breeds are hardier, and they wouldn`t have anything else on the farm. It all boils down to personal preferance, they all have there good points and their bad
As far as shipping cattle long distances 1) Buy healthy cattle from a reputable breeder
2) Vaccinate properly for shipping fever
3) If you are not trucking them yourself use a reputable trucker
We have sent cattle to California, Tennessee Washington India and Japan from Ontario, as part of a load and never heard of any problemsOctober 7, 2012 at 12:33 pm #75162Baystatetom
ParticipantYou know already that the monetary investment is nothing compared to the time investment when it comes to breaking oxen. I wouldn’t put that investment into something I didn’t have my whole heart in. I have had at least four different breeds and would like to try four more! Of course we are different some folks like one and that’s all they ever have. I think you need to take a trip to New England so you can check them out. Friburge Fair in Maine will blow your mind.
~TomOctober 7, 2012 at 2:50 pm #75174Oxhill
ParticipantIf you are committed and your motives are correct I don’t think you are crazy but I think you have a lot to plan and consider. Are you going to keep a bull or AI? How are you going to manage a bull? How are you going to AI effectively? Are you going to buy young stock and wait for them to mature or buy older animals? How many? How are you going to ship them? How are you going to market them? Do you have the time and capital for all of this? What breed? You mention Devon and Duhram two of the best in my opinion. I don’t know much about them but I would consider Piney Woods as well. They are a traditional ox breed in the south and are also rare.
I bought the family farm a year ago and gave a lot of thought about if I wanted to just have a few steers or raise Devons. I had no interest in raising any other breed. Today we have six Devon heifers a, cross heifer, a Devon bull and four steers. I am learning there is a lot more to keeping breeding stock than just keeping steers and I don’t even have anything bread yet! I am somewhat flying by the seat of my pants. I don’t know how many I want to keep. How many will fit on the farm and into my life? I chose to start with young stock but it takes two to three years before you have any calves.
Dad has bought calves all over the east cost and hauled most of them in the back of an S-10 pick up without any issues. As has been said buying healthy cattle and a shipping fever shot are a good idea. Also plan ahead so they are not too hot or too cold. There is also a website that you can post what you want shipped and people will place bids against each other for your business. I can’t remember the name now but it worked well for the person who posted about it.
October 7, 2012 at 3:12 pm #75165ParticipantI know I probably won’t be breaking another pair right away since I am still cutting my teeth on this first pair. So luckily I don’t have to worry about what breed my next team will be as of yet, but we do have enough ground to raise some breeding stock. Now we probably don’t have enough ground to base our whole business on beef or dairy. So I am thinking that if I am going to economically raise some cattle, they need to be some sort of specialty type. That is what is exciting about raising oxen for me because they can add another level of usefulness to the farm and allow me to raise some cattle. We have about 45 acres of farm ground plus about 40 of river and riparian area. Of that 45 we till about 10 each year. So the remainder is in pasture. Not enough pasture to run a full on grass fe beef operation but more than we can afford to just have a hobby animal or two. In my mind we are in a good position for the “triple purpose” type animal, or at least a dual purpose meat and draft animal. I really enjoy raising animals, meaning breeding, so I am considering trying to eventually get several cows. I am quite intrigued by the milking devon becuase of the history and honestly I think they are quite beautiful. That would obviously be the hardest for me to get plus the longest distance. I am not sure 3000 plus miles is my limit. The milking shorthorn is another option and there is a dairy here in CA with them but even that would be 6-8 hour drive away from here, plus I am not sure if I want to have true milk type animals. We are getting rid of our milking goat herd this year and I am hesitant to start milking right away, but maybe. The closest option might be horned herefords, I occasionally see one in the pastures around here, or more often what I see is a poorly dehorned cow within all the other polled herefords. I guess we will see, I’m not quite ready to go out and buy some breeding stock so I have some time to think on it still.
October 8, 2012 at 1:00 am #75175ParticipantIt would be great to see another Devon breeder. There are Devon breeders closer than 3000 miles but it would probably add value to your animals if you imported fresh blood from the east. Here is the breeder list from the association. There are others but the list is who is current with their dues.
If you do go with shorthorns I think Native Shorthorns would be the best comparison with Devons.
http://www.nativeshorthorns.com/shorthorn-history/
http://www.milkingshorthorn.com/dualpurpose.html
http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/milkingshorthorn.htmlOctober 8, 2012 at 1:40 pm #75166ParticipantAndrew, those are all the great questions that I am running through right now. I am going to be curious to see how your enterprise takes shape. How much ground do you have at your new place? I am just trying to get a sense of how much is possible with our available pasture. I am not sure about keeping a bull yet. I live in dairy country so finding a good AI tech is not very hard but monitering for heat would be very important. I also would also probably buy younger animals because of cost and I would prefer to have horned animal s and I am finding that can be hard to find when looking at mature animals. There are many considerations and I hope to have the time to sort out the needed infrastructure and have a plan before commiting to anything. I have raised dairy goats without any distinct plan for the last five years and learned a lot but also made some mistakes. When I step it up to cattle I would like to do it better this time around.
October 8, 2012 at 7:12 pm #75158ParticipantWell if you think you can keep small numbers to raise calves for oxen, I can tell you from personal experience, you better have a lot of patience because if you want bull calves, you are destined to get a lot of heifer!
For example:
I was given a cow that had 5 bull calves her first 5 pregnancies, she has has had 7 heifers in the last five pregnancies!
Yes 7, 2 consecutive sets of twin heifers, one AI and one live cover!Be, be, be prepared…..
October 8, 2012 at 7:58 pm #75167ParticipantThis is true. Earlier this year when we were contemplating expanding our milk goat herd, we had three sets of triplets for a total of 9 boys out of the 11 kids this year. I am thankful because we have decided not to pursue milking goats full time for other reasons, but I agree that what seems like a 50/50 chance is not actually good odds. I am not planning on breaking to many teams for oxen unless it gets out of control, but this means that having animals that retain more value as replacement heifers could be a good thing. Is this an afgument for raising registered animals of some kind. So that the female off spring ,that are not used as replacement, can add to the value of the herd.
October 9, 2012 at 12:47 am #75159ParticipantMmmmmmmmmm…….
That’s not where I was going with that.October 9, 2012 at 1:10 am #75176ParticipantWe have about 18 acres in pasture/hay here at the house and another eight just down the road that could be fenced and pastured. I am trying to get a sense of what is possible too. Also do I want to pasture everything and buy my hay or continue to contract my own hay baled? I am trying to learn about rotational grazing and stockpiling grass for winter as well and find a system that works with my scheduled. Only time will tell. Keeping up with the farm family and work all takes a lot of time and I haven’t worked my heifers nearly as much as I should but I am still having the time of my life.
Finding horned Milking Devons won’t be a problem. It is kind of rare to have them dehorned and it is in the bylaws that they can’t be shown without horns. Dehorning a Devon is like dehorning a Texas Longhorn in my opinion.
October 9, 2012 at 1:31 pm #75168ParticipantDroverone what did you mean? Have you had to wait for enough bull calves to choose from? I am worried about the idea of small numbers. I wonder if it is realistic to think that I can keep some cows and raise enough steers to train some and beef the rest, and not grow the herd beyond my resources. It sounds so simple but I know that it is more complex than that. I remember a while back I was having trouble with my off steer causing the team to bolt. I still have troubles with him. I have not not had the resources to scrap the two as a team and restart another pair, but I can tell that it would be nice to have a larger pool of bulls to choose from so that I can get the best pair. I started four and picked the best two but maybe I would have gotten better results if I had twice the numbers to choose from. What have you done with all those heifers? Ideally the herd would reach an equilibrium of growth so that it doesn’t out grow the resources to feed it.
October 9, 2012 at 11:01 pm #75156Andy Carson
ModeratorI am glad to see you are thinking about this, Kevin. I think that starting with small numbers is a good way to see how many animals your land can support and also be able to build slowly without financial hardship. Personally, I have always had better luck with crossbred animals, but alot of people have different opinions. If I was going to be breeding and selling alot of animals, I would probably raise purebreds. For me personally, I would pick devons if I was going to raise a purebred animal. I did check into shorthorns for a short time when I was thinking about breeds. This was mostly when I was thinking “do I really want to drive that far?” I didn’t spend alot of time doing this, but in the short time, I found alot of breeders in my area didn’t have a good appreciation for the difference between the triple purpose traditional animal and the more modern “holstein with a different color.” Nothing against holsteins, mind you, but that wasn’t what I was going for… As far as the sex of the offspring goes, it’s always a bit of a crap shoot. Probability theory tells you that if you have 2 cows, there is only a 1 in 4 (25%) chance you will get a pair of bull calves, if you have 3 cows, the odds are 50%, 4 cows and the odds are 69%, 5 cows and the odds are 81%, and with 6 bred cows the odds are 89%. Obviously, if you want to pick between 4 or more bull calves, you are getting into some serious numbers of cows. Perhaps if you plan and market well, the heifers can be a good thing. Andy Van Ord talked about a market for famiy milk cows that you might be able to get into. A milking devon would likley be a great breed for this and in Ca, you won’t have much competition. Do you know if there is a market for family milk cows in your area?
October 10, 2012 at 1:31 am #75169ParticipantThere is a market for family cows in our area and I think devons would be well received around here, as well as other parts of the west coast as well(CA and OR). The dreamer in me really wants devons but I am intimidated by how far I would have to travel in order to get good stock. Keep in mind that I live 16 miles from the most westerly point of the states, in other words about as far away from PA and VT as you can get. I also feel like if I am going to travel long distances I should get the right numbers and have a really detailed plan because it is going to cost me more than I think it will. I might want to get some heifer and some bull calves to pick another pair and then have a head start on making more oxen. That is if I want more than one team of oxen! I do but I have to think about what is realistic. Or maybe I should get older proven animals? Honestly it feels crazy that I am even considering this, but I know I am not getting into this for at least another season. So I have some time to figure things out and get my priorities straight.
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