Red Bull in the sunset….
….our new, pure, traditional English Devon baby bull. He’s THF Falcon, son of Ashott Barton Falcon, grandson of Cutcombe Millennium. And his deep red coat makes him stand out even among our very ruby red herd.
We’re keeping our fingers crossed. Right now he seems to be everything we hoped for. Broad in all directions and perfect lines. Sadly, we’re going to have to clip his horns but even the English do that now. His dam, Snowdrop, is from another outstanding traditional farm: Ivan Rowe’s Goldings herd at Lands End.
As our regular readers will know, we’ve been importing the purist, most traditional Devon we have been able to find in a search of dozens of English farms. The animals can’t be imported so we breed them over there and bring across the frozen embryos.
4 Comments
mike ortwein
Why do you find it so necessary to dehorn them? My herd of Devon’s , some have horns and some do not, they get along fine. My milking Devon has a beautiful set of horns, and she does a good job of opening up a roundbale for the rest of the herd. They stand back and let her do her thing, it works out fine.
David
Mike proves that I still have a lot to learn. Mostly, I stay in the tractor while Wooz cuts off the netting on the round bales and it seems to take forever when they’re iced over. From now on, we’ll leave the horns on one steer every year to handle the unwrapping job. And Wooz can stay in the cab with me where it’s warm.
Regina Tesnow, Tomina Farm
We just dehorned a group of our Devons. One of our heifers was “shunned” and found it hard to find a spot at the feed trough. The shape of her horns were straight out. After removal of the horns she has integrated much better. I was always concerned about other cows eyes around the horns while feeding at the trough.
mike ortwein
I have two bulls, one has horns and the other does not. Eight months out of the year they are together, the other 4 months they each spend two of the months with one of the two herds, then we rotate them. If they are both in with the females at the same time, they get aggressive, but the horn one never slashes with his horns, he just butts heads with the other one. The eight months together by themselves, they get along fine–its those females that create all the problems!!! It is the same everywhere LOL