Today Miguel has the day off so I was left unsupervised on the farm. El Jefe with no oversight is a dangerous thing.
I fed all the pigs, then I made up a couple of pallets for the cows. The first one had grapes, papaya, and watermelon along with some cabbage and various greens.
I then made up a second pallet with mangos and pumpkins. The cows couldn’t decide what to eat first, and they were still full from the bale of hay from earlier. They looked pretty happy when I left.
I also checked in on the little pigs who were sick. They all looked good except the spotted one, the one that is not 34 is coughing a bit. Looks like he needs a follow up shot.
There was also a cougher out in the main paddock. I didn’t see who but we will find him and get him treated.
I fed the little pigs in the barn a case of papaya, which they loved. I also fed them two bunches of really nice bananas. They should be passed out by now, feet up in the air.
Hoss is slowly getting used to the flow at Ninja Cow Farm. He hasn’t made any real friends with the girls yet, at least not that I’ve seen. He also seems to be hanging around by himself as much as with the rest of the herd.
Hoss, wearing a garland of cilantro.
And then today Miguel sends me the above picture. All I can say is it reminds me of this.
Standing 6″ shorter than his leading ladies, our bull looks like Joe Pesci
I have a friend who’s been trying to sell me his bull for a year. When Benjamin died, I called him up to see if he still had his bull. I knew his bull was a registered Lowline Angus and breeding for smaller conformation is something that is actively encouraged in pure grass fed operations as shorter cattle tend to do better on grass. Luckily, the bull was still available.
We already have a load of Benjamin’s genetics in our herd which is awesome but on the large side. We also already have Boyd, our replacement bull, on the ground and growing. Boyd will be ready to be our herd bull in about 8 more months, so it’s just a matter of having somebody to handle the girls for less than a year to keep things moving along. We can also hopefully have some replacement heifers born during this period that should introduce some Lowline genetics into the herd as a result of this new bull.
So everything sounds great, the timing worked out, my friend met me and helped load the bull in just a few minutes, and all three kids went along for the ride so it was a family event. Then I showed up to see the bull. He’s um… short. Now he’s good looking. And he’s docile. And he’s cute, I guess. But he’s short. I mean he looks like a little Italian man, all bulked up from weight lifting but 5’3″ tall. When I got him home and let him out with the herd, our cut yearling bulls immediately started mounting him (a sign of dominance). The cows were interested in him because he’s a man but….
Bar J Hoss meeting his ladies for the first time
Well that’s him in the center. If you look to the left you can see a white-faced cow right behind him. Their backs are even height. That cow is a one year old adolescent cut bull. He still has a year to grow into a full-sized bull. Hoss, the new bull, is an old man and has done all the growing he’s going to do. I have a feeling that after a life with Benjamin, the girls are feeling a bit like this.
The good news is the girls did seem to be interested and Hoss was certainly interested in them. I can understand why cattlemen end up breeding for larger and larger animals though. It hurts your pride to go the other way. However, in the long run we should end up with better cattle. Now if I can just keep my girls from going out in the pasture and dressing him up in outfits.
This is what it’s starting to look like in our freezers.
A few days ago I posted that we had plenty of beef for sale, and that we would most assuredly last through December with our supply. What’s that about the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men?
Yesterday I received a telephone order for 500 pounds of beef! To put that in perspective, we only received 1500 pounds total from all four cows. Considering we’ve already sold a goodly bit of beef, and I know we have a large order still to fill, that’s a pretty dramatic swing to inventory. However, the order is from a friend who is in a bind and needs an emergency order so I’ve agreed to sell her the beef. We still have plenty to meet your needs, but my estimate for how much longer just shrank dramatically.
For those of you who already have some beef, please don’t forget to let me know what you think of it. SWMBO cooked some NY strips this weekend. I’m not a fan of strip steak, preferring ribeye as it’s more tender and flavorful but I have to say the strips were surprisingly good. As in I’m looking forward to having them again good. We cut our steaks 1.5″ (rather than 1″) this time and having that thick cut really seems to make for a more preferable steak. Because it’s so lean, grass-fed steak dries out quickly anyway. Add in a thinner cut and the heat reaches the center too quickly resulting in a dry steak. Of course, I’m a bit biased on how my steaks taste, but honestly, I’m my worst critic and these steaks are mighty fine.
Today we celebrated the life of Benjamin Mucho Deniro, beloved father and husband. After only 7 short years of life, Benjamin passed from our lives after a short bout with pneumonia. Known as a gentle giant, Benjamin never had a harsh word or aggressive action towards anyone. Well, except that time I tried to get him to leave a huge pile of fresh food behind, but that was my fault.
Benjamin was truly a gentle soul who would eat directly from your hand. He often ate directly from small children’s hands when they came on tours and was always patient with them, as long as they kept the food coming.
Benjamin’s moo sounded a lot like Mike Tyson’s voice. It was hard to believe that wimpy sound came from something that could kill you by accident and not even realize he’d done it. However it was rare to hear Benjamin moo at all. He was always very quiet, no matter what was going on. It’s possible that being married to 14 women, he never had the chance to get a word in anyway.
Benjamin was a devoted and prolific husband. He looked after his many ladies and was always last to eat and last to leave the pasture making sure everyone was ahead of him. Also, Benjamin tended to amble or perhaps if he was feeling frisky, he might step it up to mosey. That may explain some of his trailing tendencies.
Benjamin was preceded in death by his wife Maggie, whom he killed with love. Benjamin is survived by his innumerable children and his 14 wives.
Benjamin at the beginning of the service.
Ben was laid to rest after a short service in the shade of an oak tree overlooking his favorite pasture.
Family and friends attending the funeral service of Benjamin M. Deniro
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you please cook your wife a chicken dinner. Or pork, or some vegetables if you want. Just as long as it’s not beef for once (the opinions of the family do not necessarily reflect the opinions of management).
It was a beautiful day and attendance at the funeral was strong
Hauss, a very distant relative, will be taking over the family business till Benjamin’s son Boyd comes of age. Hauss will be arriving this week and all inquires should be directed directly to him.
This afternoon when I gave Benjamin the two injections of medicine, he looked pretty bad. Much worse than all the previous check ins. I told Miguel that he would either get better in 24 hours, or he would not make it. Unfortunately I was right, but on the not making it part.
Thank you to everyone for the well wishes for Benjamin. He was a great bull and will be missed. Ben will be buried here on the farm where he lived.
Beef loaded for a delivery to one of our favorite customers
Friday we brought back another truck load of beef to the farm. We now have plenty of hamburger, plus all the regular cuts like steaks and roasts. You can see what we have, and the pricing per pound, on our beef page on our website.
I felt like, and I’ve told some of you, that we would have beef for months. However at the rate beef is leaving the farm I’m not sure we’ll have beef till spring. We will definitely have it for December though so don’t feel like you’re missing out if you can’t get over here in the next week or two. If you haven’t bought from us before, know that we only sell off farm directly to you. We can deliver for orders over $100 and within 15 miles.
As a reminder, and for those of you that are new to our farm, our cows are grass raised, and grass finished. They have NEVER had commercial feed. They are born and raised here till finish. They are free of pretty much anything you can inquire about and it’s easier to just say what they do get. They get grass, hay, produce, water, and sunshine. That’s it.
We plan on having pork back in stock in a few weeks as well, for those of you waiting on Ninja pork.
The vet thinks these more powerful anti-biotics may help Benjamin recover. It’s a subcutaneous injection which is easy, but it’s 30ml which isn’t. Hopefully Benjamin won’t mind too much.
Yesterday we had the vet out again to look at Benjamin. 3 minutes in, he said I needed to look at getting another bull. I wasn’t too pleased to hear that and wanted to know what the options were. Basically we can try some medicine, and we can try giving him attention, but there isn’t really much to do for him. He has pneumonia for sure, and also may have cancer although that is just a guess. There is a real possibility we will be burying Benjamin in the near future.
We’ve worked really hard on having Benjamin be a nice and gentle bull and he really is. Even when he’s in all this distress, he’s been very gentle and easy-going. Even when we put him in the head gate he just stands there and lets us work, and he patiently waits to exit via the escape door (he’s too big to go through the head gate opening like other cows).
We gave Benjamin 25ml of Bantomine yesterday, and I’ll give him 20ml more today. Last time that helped him perk up and eat some. If we can get him eating, we have some more medicine that has to be given orally that we can give him but per the vet his bull days are over.
The other two cows we took a few weeks ago to finish were:
#28 hanging weight of 323 pounds.
#40 hanging weight of 369 pounds.
Both cows had belted Galloway fathers, hence the desire to cull them. They were both culled at about one year of age, making them about half way to finished. #28 has been a trouble maker his whole life so he was selected way earlier in the year. #40 was a pretty good cow temperament wise, but he wasn’t doing well in our management system and was selected to be culled since we were already going.
Both cows were picked up on Friday from the processor. I had an interesting conversation with the processor when I was picking these up. He said that I grass-fed and finished by cows. I replied that yes I did then asked him how he knew. He said he could look at the carcass and tell how the farmer fed them.
He said that my cows had yellow fat, and were relatively lean compared to corn-fed cows. He said they had good fat for grass-fed but nowhere the fat of a corn-fed cow. All good news to me.
He said that corn-fed cows had pure white fat, and lots of it.
He said that cows that were grass-fed, then fed corn for the last month or two had yellow fat with a big fat layer covering the whole carcass where they put on a bunch of fat when given all that corn. He said that the fat on these cows was pretty weird feeling. That something was definitely different.
He said that he can really tell how a cow was handled by the carcass. This is something I’ve always heard but it was pretty neat to confirm it from the expert.
I then made up a second pallet with mangos and pumpkins. The cows couldn’t decide what to eat first, and they were still full from the bale of hay from earlier. They looked pretty happy when I left. 
