Watch THIS Before Buying Cattle - Preparing For Cows on Your Homestead

So hey everybody, welcome back to Peek's Peek. I'm Lucas, and today we're gonna talk about what to expect when you bring new calves home. Shoo-wee! It is hot in eastern Kentucky today. 95 degrees. So humid, I could swim in the air. Even the chickens are staying in the shade. Normally, I'd have a whole pile of chickens running behind me because it's time to eat, but they all came running out of the shade over here. All right, get on in there. Come on, guys. Time to eat, time to eat. Hey, what's up, Big Mac? Leetwood Big Mac. Hey, Angus. How's Angus young? Little bit of scratch to keep him busy while we get the feed out. Hey, you're late to the party. Little bit of calf starter in there for him. Hey, no fighting, no fighting. There's enough to go around. Come on, come on in. Check out this little guy. This is Chippy. Chippy was hatched by the school, and we put him out here with Mommy and Daddy in the chicken tractor, but he can slide out from under it. He's doing great. So we brought home our two steers and turned them loose in the pasture. And the first few days are always just a little bit sketchy around the farm because they are unhappy about leaving their mamas, and we can all understand that. And so they will bawl and moo until they lose their voices. They sound like elk now because they have bawled until they've lost their voices, and it's a little bit sad, but it's all part of the process of bringing them to a new home. The other thing that they will do is they will run the fence lines looking for a way out. They've only been in this pasture, let's see, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Today is Tuesday. They've been in this pasture for four days, and that's when about, that's pretty much when they start calming down and they quit bawling quite so much, and they kind of settle in and start figuring out where everything is and that this is going to be home. This is where they eat, and it's where they find their water. But in that four days, they have managed to beat a path around this field, and kind of leave a muddy trail where they run up and down the fence rows bawling for mama. Now, it also doesn't help that we have a big Angus cattle farm across the road where they hear mama cows mooing back, and so there was a little conversation back and forth, and they bawl, and they come to the edge of the fence where they're closest to that farm because they hear some response when they're bawling. They also are freshly weaned, so they are used to getting a lot of their nutrition from their mama, and it's time for them to start eating on the pasture. And these two, we watched them graze in the field before we decided to go ahead and bring them off of their mama and bring them home. So we knew that they could eat grass, and they were kind of working their way into it. But I also went and got calf starter so that I could begin feeding them that as a supplement so they can get the nutrient. Of course, you know, we worked them through and gave them their shots, and we gave them their wormer, and we also banded them. So now that they've been banded for four days, we expect them to lose a little bit of weight, and that's partially because of the shock to the system of being banded and castrated, and partially because they've been taken away from their mama. So we want to make sure they get all the nutrition they can get in what they're eating, so we've put calf starter in there, and we feed them twice a day a scoop of calf starter to give them a little bit of extra boost. I have made sure that I spend a lot of time out here in the pasture just kind of hanging out with them and talking to them to get them calmed down. Since we only have two steers in our pasture, and our pasture's pretty small, they're up here close to the house, I like for them to be calm. I like to be able to at least walk up to them in case we ever have a problem and they get sick and I need to be able to give them a shot or something like that. I don't have the shoe system, and so if I don't want to have to borrow a trailer and load them up and take them to the neighbor's farm in order to put them in a head gate, then I need to be able to approach. That's why I have the strategy of spending time around them so they're used to me, used to hearing my voice and hear me talk to them so that I can approach them if I need to. And that seems to work out pretty good. Our last couple, I don't know if you watched our video where we took them to the butcher, one of the processors there said, you can tell these are pets because they were calm. They weren't afraid of me in the trailer when I was trying to get them out. They're not pets. They're going to be food for the table, but we still want them to be calm and happy and enjoy their life here on Peaks Peak. So if you have never brought new calves home to your homestead or your farm, then you need to be prepared to hear them moo and bawl for the first two or three nights. And they actually woke us up the first night because... Well, you're trying to get involved, are you? Because they made a lot of noise out here. The neighbors who are not used to this because they just moved in over there, they probably were wondering what in the world's going on and what have they moved into. But after a few days, they've actually lost their voice, but I've also noticed that they've quit bawling so much. They used to, you would have definitely heard several balls out of them by now and they have calmed down. I just got home from work today and I can already tell they are calmer today even than they were yesterday. So that's good. And where we're getting mid 90 degree heat in mid June here, that's pretty early. And so they still have some pretty decent fur on them. So you want to make sure that they've got good fresh water that they can get to and that they have plenty of shade. So you want to plan for that in your pastures. Now I pastured in around some really big trees. So they have some shade over there, but they also have a section of the lean-to that they can get in under here. And they seem to be liking hanging out over there. I find them laying down over here quite a bit. So they've got plenty of places to get in, stay cool. And they've got plenty of fresh water there. So it's working out pretty good for them. So now another thing that I'll mention is I only have a couple of acres of pasture fenced in here and I'm running two steers on that pasture. And by the time the season's over, that won't be quite enough pasture to support them on grass only. And I'm also not an enormous fan of grass-fed beef flavor. So I want to supplement that. And I feed them grain according to how the pasture's doing. And then in the wintertime we'll put out hay, but we'll also feed them grain. Up until the last couple of months, the last two or three months, we'll really pour the grain to them to put the weight on. And in the last cattle that we raised, that worked out really well. And we had some great tasting meat out of those. Now there may be a little bit of personal preference in that. So you may want to do it a little bit differently. Maybe you want grass-fed beef, or maybe you have access to more pasture where you can afford to turn them out and you can save money by not feeding them the grain. But in our situation, where I like the flavor of the grain-fed beef, and I don't have a lot of pasture to support them, it works out well for us. And we're able to kind of keep the costs in check because they have grass to eat, but we feed them enough to keep them growing well. What's up, Pox? If you remember this pasture, I actually, because we were getting the cattle a little bit late this year, I had to bush hog this pasture high because it was going to be too tall. And that's another thing you kind of want to keep in mind. And I'm no expert in this, but from what I understand, if you let your grass get too tall, the seeds will get in their eyes and they can get pinkeye. And I don't know if it's from the seeds and the contamination, or if it's, I don't know exactly what causes that, but I can tell you that if you let your pastures get too tall, you will have pinkeye in your cattle. So you want to make sure that you don't let that happen. So I mentioned that your new calves will spend their time running the fence rows and looking for a way out of your field. One of the main things you want to do is make sure you've got all your gates locked up tight, because if they nose around on them and knock the chain loose and they get out, then you've got a problem because they don't know where home is. They're looking for mama. They're not part of a herd. So you're going to have trouble getting them back unless you're right there and you keep eyes on them the whole time. Ask me how I know. Now, once you get through the initial first few days and they get settled in and they come and eat feed out of their trough and they know where the water is, they get used to home, then you'll be okay. Even if they get out, you're going to have a pretty easy time getting them back. A lot of times you can train them to a feed bucket and bang on the bucket to come when it's time to eat. And then when they hear that sound, they'll come back anyway. But those first several days are crucial to make sure you keep everything locked up tight so that you don't have to chase them all over creation. Are the two little chicks that hatched on the farm this year. And there is mama. Well, probably mama and daddy. There is mama who hatched them. And they're doing great. What are you doing, buddy? What do you think this is? I want to swim. I can see you have a plan. What's your plan? I'm going to go swimming. Where are you going swimming? At the pond. Mr. Bubble Gum. Well, you got Big League Chew? Hubba Bubba? That thing. Is that Warhead's gum from... Ah, when you have a Dollar General across the road, you get to try all the candies, right? Do you get candy every day? Not every day. Man, got it made, don't you? What do you think of Angus and Big Mac? Don't know. Don't know? You haven't been out here with these much, have you? Come here. Where are you guys going? Why are you running away? Look at the pig pen. It's been like destroyed. Yeah, we're going to have to get some more pigs, aren't we? It's about time. All right, guys. Well, that's just about going to do it for today's episode. Appreciate y'all watching. I guess me and Caden are going swimming in the pond. Yes, and you were going in the pond. I'm swimming today. All right. Thank y'all for watching. Y'all have a good day. Cannonball! Oh!