Re: OT: mixing critters

Posted by The REAL Hal/WA on October 14, 2007 at 21:52:37 from (66.45.175.118):

In Reply to: OT: mixing critters posted by Dave from MN on October 14, 2007 at 06:37:08:

It would probably be OK if there is plenty of food for all of them all the time. If there is a shortage, the larger ones will bully the little ones a bit, and the small ones might not do as well as they should.

We always figured if the cattle ate all the hay we gave them withing a couple of hours, we weren't giving them enough. But if they left a lot of stems, and didn't clean things up after a whole day, we were feeding too much. We had a covered feed bunk attached to our barn, which nearly eliminated wasted hay. The way we fed, the cattle ate everything we gave them and usually all of the cattle in the herd did very well all winter. It was sure better than feeding on the ground.

I have seen setups that were built to exclude larger animals, but allow smaller ones to enter. We never did that, but we also had plenty of room for all our cattle.

We also ended up with very few animals that had any horns. A cow with horns has a huge advantage in a herd where the others do not, and might bully the others for the best food.

Where we lived, it was not necessary to give the beef cattle shelter--they would just bed down under pine trees and seemed pretty comfortable even if the snow was coming down and it was real cold. We watered our cattle from a year-round creek, which worked out just fine most of the time. But when it was extremely cold for more than a couple of days, the creek would freeze over hard enough that the cattle would not be able to break through the ice walking on it. Then I had to lead the cattle to where a large spring ran into the creek, which never froze over. Unfortunately that was nearly half a mile from the barn. The cattle would all follow me and get their drinks from the spring. I thought it was interesting that they would not remember where the spring was, but had to be led there, at least the first time every cold snap. Hopefully you have a water system that you can keep from freezing. Cattle really need water all the time to do well.

We usually had very deep mud around the barnyard. I sometimes worried about the younger animals having trouble in that mud/manure, which could get 2' deep in places in the Spring, but thinking back, I don't remember ever seeing any calves in distress. A few carried some mudballs around on their bellies for awhile though. My Dad talked about pouring a large concrete pad in the barnyard near the feed bunk, but we never did. Apparently he decided it was too expensive for the amount of good it would have done. It would have given the cattle somewhere to walk where the mud wasn't so deep though.

Good luck with your cattle. They will develop a pecking order, just like all animals tend to do. But if there is little competition for food or water, they will probably all do OK.

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