Another study says smaller cows more profitable FWIW. I have followed this type plan (my own) for years and found it to be the most profitable. Yes your neighbors may say "Watche doing with those midgits" when in fact (bottom line) smaller cattle need less attention at birth and require less of every thing else to reach a Sale Barn profit.
Nope they won't, I raised Irish Dexters (Smallest true breed) for 25 years on pasture grass fed and finished and the Eco Nuts still hate you, mainly because they are pretty much all Vegans and equate eating livestock of any kind to Murdering another human. I am a life long PETA Member ***PEOPLE EATING TASTY ANIMALS***
Its all about market choices driven by the mass production of our food. If you pay for taste and health, you raise cows that give rich milk with an excellent taste, you raise Jersey's, etc, but if you pay for the milk by the pound and could care less about the taste, you end up with the frankenholistiens. For beef and pigs, same thing, and we won't even discuss frying chickens and eggs. The older breeds of cows, usually smaller, were selected to be good tempered, give a usable amount of milk that tasted good and was suitable for butter and cheese, were easy to keep and did well with very little grain or other costly feed,etc. Sounds like a good criteria for a survival farm cow.
Plants are living things too . Some even respond to human interaction and even music . Our bodies live in living tissue ,it's the stale dead tissue that clogs our arteries . I digress , I think it's great that they have found smaller cows are more cost effective ,so long as they are not being fed GMOs .
I told a friend a few years back I was going to start raising chickens and name them. He asked what I was going to name them ? I said , Monday , Wednesday , Friday , and Sunday .
Hehe...... my sister made the mistake of naming her chickens. Then she couldn't bear to butcher them. Whenever we have chicken some place I tease her. If a bigger bird, I say, "I got a Judy drumstick!" Ifca small bird, "I got an Anna drumstick!" She's never amused.
Which I tried once. Like eating vaguely bacon-flavored cardboard. Yuck. No way could I be a Vegan. A friend at work once conned me into doing lunch at a vegetarian restaurant. After trying the "spaghetti with veggie balls", I had to ask, "WHERE'S THE MEAT!?"
My grandmother had 3 Guernsey cows named Creamy, Buttercup, and Ginger. This type of cow is known for it's very high amount of cream as compared to other cows. These cows were very friendly and liked to look over my shoulder when I was 7 years old trout fishing in the small brook that ran through the pasture. In the Fall season I would pour bucket fulls of wild apples down upon their heads as they were in their stalls and sometimes would ride them. I lived with my grandparents on a small farm in remote northern New Hampshire near the Canadian border. My mother was divorced and I rarely saw her. A modern age woman on welfare living the high life on welfare.
I'm A Jersey-man ,FROM Jersey , where the (Breed) comes from , Guernsey also ,next island .. Channel Islands - Wikipedia And since Im in training as a beef dude @ 70 , Angus beef : Angus cattle - Wikipedia Please know , before posting service !! It's EZ , Sloth
A larger flock of smaller animals allows you to select for whatever traits for or against and when one dies of old age or whatever you haven't lost as much of an investment. If they are small enough you can also butcher as you go freeing up freezer space. Just store the meat on the hoof. Smaller animals mean they are less dangerous to handle, but nothing is without risk. That's why I like Soay Sheep. Even more efficient in pastured meat per acre
