November 30, -0001
Texas is a great state. They have no income tax, but they do heavily tax property. I suppose to encourage the Texas way, they allow offset of taxes with exemptions for some farming activities and some ranching activities. I’m thinking no problem, we have horses on the property, that is ranching so we can get an exemption. Nay, nay says the county. Horses are pleasure animals and do not qualify for an exemption.
County says you can keep bees, you can keep cattle, or you can keep goats……. Now, besides just learning about horses, we need another new adventure to learn. After considering many options we purchased cattle - three mommas with calves and seven heifers. That met the requirements for ‘at least one animal unit per 5 acres’.
Fortunately, we did not need to go to an auction to get our animals. My son in law, who is from this area, knew a real cattle rancher who sold from his herd. The rancher also now serves as my google encyclopedia of knowledge. A very nice man who still answers my calls.
However, heifers are not much good without a bull. God smiled on us when my neighbor across the road had a small hay fire. We met him when we went to check on the smoke. Fire wasn’t a problem so we chatted. Turned out he had a registered Hereford bull he would rent. Yep, you can rent a bull. Shortly after our cows were delivered our rented bull was delivered.
Our friendly cattleman told us feed buckets were the best cowboys. So we began a routine of morning and evening attracting the animals to us by shaking a bucket of feed. It is true it did not take long before the cattle and the bull would come close just by shaking the bucket and placing a token amount of grain pellets out.
Our neighbor said his bull was gentle. Big old fellow, the bull walks right up and lets us pet (rather just touch) him. The cattle are still skittish if we move within about three feet from them. I suspect the bull is confident we would not hurt him, probably more that he could stop any issues by himself. So on we go learning about animals. With luck in 235 +/- days we will have more cows than we can handle. What I do know is everyone we talked to told us - do not name the cows!
We have learned pellets are different between horses and cattle. Cow pellets can have urea which isn’t good for horses. But, the horses also learned when we go out to the pasture and shake a bucket that food is coming. Best to buy pellets that are safe for both horses and cattle. It is no fun trying to shoo away 1200 pound horses from 1200 pound cattle when they both know feed is coming.
