Cow Families

One of my favorite things with farming is cattle genetics. Many of our cow families go back several generations. The ultimate goal is to choose superior bulls for each cow to better the next generation. Most of our dairy herd can be traced back to 5 cows and one bull from the early 1900's when my ancestors began farming on our current farm. I got to thinking about this today when I was selecting which bulls to breed the 2 cows to that were in heat today. The one bull I choose was a bull that died several years ago, but through technology, he still has calves being born. The other bull, was what is called a young sire, meaning his traits are not yet fully proven. We have proofs, which tell us kinda what to expect, but as he has more calves born, these traits can be verified for sure.


On our farm, we have about 75% Holsteins and the remaining 25% are mostly Jerseys. I've always liked the jerseys. Most of the jerseys in our herd our mine. My sister totally dislikes jerseys. She loves the Holsteins. I don't mind them either, but it just seems to be easier to work with the jerseys just because they are not as large compared to Holsteins.

Its been awhile, a long while...

So, I have been a terrible blogger lol. I was reading a few blogs today and thought it was time for me to get going again, surprisingly my account was still active. So, here it goes. Not a lot has changed. I'm still working on my families dairy. We have added some cows, and the big news is I'm now part owner. I'm super excited about this. I still handle the cattle work. My sister has joined the farm as well. She helps me with the breeding and morning milking too. Since we added the extra cows I'm glad to have her help. My brother takes care of feeding and crop work. My mom does pay roll and book keeping. Dad does a little bit of everything (he says hes the ceo lol) so that's where we are at. I'll try to do a blog as often as I can. If anyone has any questions, just ask, I love talking about anything farming!!!

P.S., I'm re-learning blogging, so I may make a few mistakes ( a lot prob lol)