[Andy Carson]

@simon lenihan 36264 wrote:

my gripe is with the forestry department, i think it is their resposibility to follow through to a satisfactory conclusion.

I hear you, and I am not saying I have a better solution or saying what is being done is the best solution. I mostly wanted to point out that this is a complex problem without an easy solution (or at least one that I can see) and the “best” solution is probably going to be the “least bad” solution. I wonder if locals were asked to gather horses because many were origionally owned by locals. If a horse is turned out into the forest, does the horse immediately become the property of the state? It not immediately, how long does the horse have to be abandoned before the oriognal owner looses rights? If there is indeed a defined period of time, can anyone prove when each horse was adandoned? Also, it seems that this area has been used for extra pasture for a while, and I think the people using the pasture should get ample warning and time to gather thier animals before thier livestock gets nationalized. Perhaps having locals collect the livestock is a way of avoiding these sort of legal entanglements? Really, this situation gets more and more complicated ever time I think about it. I’m glad I don’t have to decide how to handle it, because every potential solution seems to have problems with it. I am hesitant to criticize someones solution to a problem when I don’t have a solution that seems better.

[Andy Carson]

I thought there was more to this story than might first appear… After all, why does that “wild” horse have a brand on it??? And what is with the supposed “horse tormentors” who are closely inspecting and thinking about the horses that are running around? They look more like they are at an action or a sale, not a torture festival. So I checked up…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube_Delta_horse

It seems a lot of these horses are feral and belonged, at one point, to locals. This explains the brand on the one in the photo. It is somewhat debatable whether the horses are causing a lot of damage to the forest, but removing feral animals from a fragile forest ecosystem is a very “2012 AD” thing to do. OK, so you remove them, now what??? That’s a lot of horses to just sit around and feed… You could slaughter them and get some value out of them, but many of these horses have equine infectious anemia so are quarantined and can’t be sold to countries that eat a lot of horse. So, then what??? If it were me, I would see if any of the branded ones remembered how to work. If so, they could be sold to locals and possibly stand a chance of having a useful (and longer) life. The sale price might pay for the training and leave a little profit for whoever caught the horses too. I would clearly not do this in the way illustrated, but I probably wouldn’t have to cash to hire a real professional to break the horses either… Especially because the horses aren’t going to be worth a whole lots after they are broke anyway. So, the most logical course of action migth be to see if any of the horses can be broke (or remember thier previous training) with minimal effort. Next, sell those horses locally and slaughter the rest. It is wholely possible this is exactly what we are looking at, with a poor trainer what works cheap. Not an exciting story, but I think it makes a whole lot more sense than a story that somehow Romanians are bloodthirsty barbarians who have nothing better to do than torture horses for no gain whatsoever. This modern headline media needs fact-checked all the time!

[Andy Carson]

Oh really??? Well, I’ll keep my mind open for longer then…

[Andy Carson]

I sprinkled a little brown sugar on the grain and they are eating grain great, now even without the sugar. I don’t think they really need it, and am not feeding much, but it nice to have a treat to get them to come running. They will probably need it this winter too. I am planning on feeding the same grass hay to both my mature oxen and these young ones. It’s last years first cut and the calves will probably do better with some supplement too. The biggest calf is becoming less and less my favorite. He laid down rather than walked when I was practicing leading him. The other two are doing quite well leading already. The single is still the best, which is suprizing as the smaller twin got the most people time. Go figure. If the biggest calf keeps laying down and being generally obstinate, I will probably stop training him soon and relegate him to being him to beef. I can probably work around these problems with him, but it already feels that he has a different temperment than the other two, and this make make pairing him up difficult. He’s very very dominant over the other two calves. He pushes them around all the time, seemingly just for the fun of it. It is interesting how clearly the personalities come out in calves that are still so young.

[Andy Carson]

That’s good to know. I bought some calf starter for them, as some feeding guidelines say this is the stage they are in and I thought they might need something higher in protein to ease their transition from milk to pasture. It sounds like this isn’t a big deal, as they are enjoying the pasture. Still, I like to have a way to make thier time with me a positive experience, and thought giving them a grain treat would be a nice way of making it positive. They also like neck rubs, so perhaps the grain isn’t needed for that either. It sure is nice to have years to figure all this out before they need to do heavy work.

[Andy Carson]

They had some adolescent bulls in a seperate group that they took us to see with the same breeding. I was in love with the look of these boys. Not tall, but very very stout. To my eyes, a lot of the devon was coming out. Andy V noted several differences, which would definately be apparent to someone who is used to looking at purebred Devons a lot. The height and color seems to be strongly influenced by the Devon breeding, although they do seem to be a little taller and not quite as red as most of the purebred devons we looked at the next day. The Van Ords think the thick muscling probably comes from the Shorthorn blood, which makes sense, but I was suprized to see that they are more thickly muscled than the purebred Devons. I think I am more used to seeing “modern” dairy type shorthorns (they look like holsteins with a different color to me) and I am guessing they found an old style thick milking shorthorn. The Ayrshire horns seem to be extremely heritable, and all thier animals had these. One of the older bulls had this type of horns too, which looked kinda funny and out of place, as they were kinda thin and tall in a typical Ayrshire shape. Andy V said it looked kinda feminine, and I have to agree. Not that it really matters to me, but it was funny to see feminine horns on such a masculine bull. I will be curious what the little nubs on these boys turn into, but am expecting some height. I think I will probably castrate a little on the later side, because I liked the look of thier bulls so much and they seemed to have good temperments.

PS. they are probably also stout because they had free access to thier mommas milk half the day (they were separated at night), and not taken completely off milk until I took them at 3 months old. That’s a lot of milk! The downside is they don’t know what grain is, and I am struggling to get them to eat much grain. They are eating tons of grass, though, and chewing their cuds, so I figure they will come around. thier condition is good and thought thier manure is a little loose, it is the right color and smell. Still, I haven’t gotten more that a half cup into any of them at a time. The thinnest calf eats the best, but again it’s not much. If anyone has any tips on how to make the grain more tempting, please share.

PPS. The calves are still obsessed with finding thier mommas, and got it into thier heads that my oxen team might either be their mommas or maybe be with their mommas. They wanted to be with them really really badly. I thought I would see what would happen so put them in wiht the older team. All the calves ran over to them as fast as they could screaming “Momma, Momma, Momma!!!” When they got close, one of my older team lowered his head and took a couple steps towards them. “Not the Momma, not the Momma, not the Momma!!!” they are screamed as they scattered. It was very funny, and I put them back in thier own pasture for a while.

[Andy Carson]

I did a little lead training with these calves last night. The single calf, Bilbo, was the easier to work with, followed very closely by the smaller twin, Freddie. The bigger twin, George, was the more resistant to leading and when he went foward, he ran like crazy. He had a hard time relaxing. He was also significantly more awkward than the other two getting into and out of the trailer and fell down a couple times. It is far far too early to make any descisions, but I am glad I got 3 so I can pick by favorite two. If I had gotten two, I would have picked George for sure as he is the twin of one calf, and matches the other calf right now. Again, it’s too early to say for sure, but if this continues George might be my beefer based solely on temperment. I am keeping an open mind for now…

[Andy Carson]

thanks for the compliments. I am glad it worked out too. Thanks again for sharing the contact, Erika.

[Andy Carson]

No big deal. If there are 3 with potential, I am pretty certain I can get 2 to work for me. I never asked them to hold all 5 so I could pick from them.

[Andy Carson]

@dominiquer60 36118 wrote:

From a friend who has been enjoying her new family cow, rumor has it that someone just picked up a pair of twin bull calves from these folks too.

One of our additions this year has been a family milk cow. It’s been a great project, and we’ve been experimenting with lots of yogurt and soft cheeses. We milk once a day, and pasture her with her calf for the other milking. Our cow came from Hugh and Hanna at Threshold Farm in Philmont, and they would like to reduce the size of their herd a bit more. They are a biodynamic farm, and their cattle are lovely, gentle Ayrshire/Red Devon or Milking Shorthorn mix. If you are at all interested, please contact Hanna.Bail, Threshold Farm
518-672-5509
thresholdfarm@gmail.com

Someone other than me? I think I am going to get 3, with the intention of eating the least responsive one. I am making the trip to pick them up on saturday. That would mean Threshold farm sold all 5 of thier recent bull calves, which is great. Andrew Van Ord is going with me to pick up something like 8 devon calves from a place that is closeby. It is good to see all the interest.

My understanding is that their cows are a mix of Ayrshire and Milking Shorthorn, and they have recently started using a Milking Devon bull on these.

[Andy Carson]

I looked at some pictures and these look very very much like chokecherry seeds. I think you are right about this , Carl. The seeds are supposed to have an almond flavor, from cyanide. I think this is probably what they are getting into. I haven’t seen the fruiting bodies around the house, but I read this is not uncommon as wild (and domestic) birds eat them as soon as they mature. I will have to see if I can find the plants.

[Andy Carson]

I know there is some wild cherry in the woods, but I didn’t think the chickens went back there. Perhaps they go in for the fruit and run off. It’s definately not a safe place for them long term… I haven’t noticed any chokecherry, but I haven’t gone looking for it and wouldn’t be suprized if I found some around. I know what domestic cherry pits look like, with a thick ridge on one side and a groove on the other side. These aren’t like domestic cherry pits, but I am not as sure what wild cherry pits look like… Perhaps this? The shell on these is very hard, but also thin and not “woody” in the way domestic cherry pits are. I’ll go investigating trees and if I can match the seed to a fruit I have an answer.

[Andy Carson]

Not sure, but that’s why I didn’t eat any more… 😮

[Andy Carson]

I was planning on planting them too, I thought perhaps someone might recognize these. I haven’t seen them before. I tasted a bit of the inside of one (Yeah, maybe this is gross). It tasted mostly like a raw peanut, which makes me think legume, but it did have a hint of bitter almond. Enough of a hint that I thought I better not eat much before I know what it is… I am not sure if this helps with the ID, it sounds like I am going to have to plant and identify the plant rather than the seed.

[Andy Carson]

Interesting. Restricting the bite size of animals with nets or bars seems to be an important feature with horse feeders. I could see that this could be beneficial for cattle too, although I would guess that the hole size/bar width would need to be somewhat larger for cattle due to a different mouth structure that seems less able to act as “treezers” to extract hay from small holes. Forcing cattle to take smaller bites could have positive effects beyond the hay wasting aspect in that hay consumption could be spread out over a long time, which would make intake more uniform and possibly reduce apparent hunger, boredom, and destructive behaviors. This could be very useful esp for mature oxen who are limit fed. I think this is a feature I will incorporate as well.

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