{"id":3348,"date":"2014-05-03T07:34:03","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T11:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/?p=3348"},"modified":"2014-05-03T07:36:48","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T11:36:48","slug":"theyre-making-easy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/theyre-making-easy\/","title":{"rendered":"They’re not making it easy…."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20140502_101556\"<\/a>….the main herd moving into the pen for preg checks.\u00a0 With stocking rate just about max, we’re putting more pressure on selection but the\u00a0cows wouldn’t cooperate.\u00a0 They’re all pregnant.<\/p>\n

We used two bulls this year to keep the genetic lines separate:\u00a0 U2 and Jackpot.\u00a0 U2<\/em> comes out of Rotokawa 974<\/em>; Jackpot<\/em> from Rotokawa 688<\/em>.\u00a0 Both are now for sale to\u00a0make room for their sons.<\/p>\n

The only open Devon was a\u00a0freemartin (for our non-farm readers, that’s a female who was twinned and they’re often sterile) but we’re saving her for meat.\u00a0 We understand a freemartin is outstanding in that category.<\/p>\n

It was a long day…we also had calves to dehorn and, in most cases, steer.\u00a0 But Devon cows behave beautifully so there’s no stress for them….or us!.<\/p>\n

The one sad note was at the very end we\u00a0had to dispose of our last remaining Angus.\u00a0 She could no longer keep up with\u00a0the herd, clearly suffered in winter, was mostly blind, and so it was a merciful end to a distinguished career with an unbroken string of calves and never a need for a vet.<\/p>\n

Her life ended in the only pastures she had\u00a0known for almost 17 years.\u00a0 Thank you Miss Piggy<\/em>.\u00a0 And we wish you year-around lush, green grass and endless calves to nurse in cow heaven.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

….the main herd moving into the pen for preg checks.\u00a0 With stocking rate just about max, we’re putting more pressure on selection but the\u00a0cows wouldn’t cooperate.\u00a0 They’re all pregnant. We used two bulls this year to keep the genetic lines separate:\u00a0 U2 and Jackpot.\u00a0 U2 comes out of Rotokawa 974; Jackpot from Rotokawa 688.\u00a0 Both are now for sale to\u00a0make room for their sons. The only open Devon was a\u00a0freemartin (for our non-farm readers, that’s a female who was twinned and they’re often sterile) but we’re saving her for meat.\u00a0 We understand a freemartin is outstanding in that category. It was a long day…we also had calves to dehorn and, in most cases, steer.\u00a0 But Devon cows behave beautifully so there’s no stress for them….or us!. The one sad note was at the very end we\u00a0had to dispose of our last remaining Angus.\u00a0 She could no longer keep up with\u00a0the herd, clearly suffered in winter, was mostly blind, and so it was a merciful end to a distinguished career with an unbroken string of calves and never a need for a vet. Her life ended in the only pastures she had\u00a0known for almost 17 years.\u00a0 Thank you Miss Piggy.\u00a0 And we wish you year-around lush, green grass and endless calves to nurse in cow heaven.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3348"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3353,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3348\/revisions\/3353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}