Sunday 3 November 2013

New Calves on the Block.




My neighbour, Jean-Claude, has been threatening to give up milking for some time. The unsocial hours, and small returns, have taken their toll.

I have just noticed that he has 4 new Blonde d'Aquitaine calves in amongst his herd of  Montbeliards and Holsteins (above, 4 baby Blondes background, 1 Montbeliard foreground) .

I must say that nothing would give me greater pleasure than looking out onto a couple of dozen pale honey-coloured 'Aquitaines'. They are beautiful creatures, on top of which they are my region's NATIVE COW.

I just hope that his exit from milking the Montbeliards, coincides with completely restocking with Blonde d'Aquitaines. It looks as if it will (I've just spoken with him, and he confirms as much; yippee)!

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15 comments:

  1. Lovely. Really lovely! You make me want to rush over just to get an eyeful of them...

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    1. The Blonde d'Aquitaines are such serene animals, with dewy eyes and Labrador coloured coats. One couldn't imagine more beautiful creatures.

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  2. Beautiful. I am sure they will enjoy all that lush grass.

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  3. So, I am a bit confused ~ will the new blondies be milkers Cro? Or is he moving into meat production??

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    1. Meat production.... Less work.... No more getting up at 5.30am (like me). He should even be able to go off on holiday for a week or two; I'd have no trouble looking after their water etc (if he should ask me).

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  4. They look like they are really well looked after. Will they be allowed to keep their horns? We have to get our cattle horns removed before they can go to the cattle mart.

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    1. I don't see why not. As long as they grow outwards they're not a problem. Cows don't look right de-horned!

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  5. I love Aquitaines too Cro. Round here they are mainly Holstein - one herd of Guernsey, but of course the Holstein produces the most milk. There is also a Jersey herd for special creamy milk. All milk has little profit these days - we went out rather drastically with Foot and Mouth and lost our herd, but we would have gone out anyway as it was becoming hard to make a Iliving. Sad really as this rarer breeds are such lovely animals. Now round here, where there are suckler herds, they are mainly Angus and/or Limousin cross.I hope you enjoy the new herd.

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  6. We AI all our cows, meaning no bull on our premises. For the first time last year we used Montbeliard seman and were shocked at how big the calves were! But also so beautiful. Now we use that seman only in our biggest cows. But I'll have to ask Keith about getting some Aquitane seman. Might as well add even more class to our Midwest farm where all the other farmers milk only the boring and dull witted Holstein.

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    1. I'm not keen on Holsteins (did you guess?).

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  7. Lovely cows!! When we see calves along our road, we have this habit of squealing "BABY COWS!" to each other. You'd never know we were born in the city, would you? ha ha...

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  8. They are pretty.

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  9. Out of our window, for most of the year we look at a small herd of Herefordshire cattle. Beautiful animals and being in Herefordshire seems rather apt!

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  10. They are quite lovely creatures

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