Saga of the Ugly Cow

My dad died in the early 80s leaving a widow and a small cowherd. Mom not wanting to manage cows gave the herd to her three sons.  We had never been into back grounding but it sounded like a good venture to go along with the cows, so off I went to the sale barn to buy some 450# heifers to background.  I thought I had bought some young animals only to find out later they were just small framed.

The first mishap was that they broke into the barn which was used to store corn, two foundered and died.  The next mishap was I go into the cow barn and find this little bitty calf.  It was at that time I realized the stock was not young just small.  The only thing to do was to kick the mother and calf out into the lot with the cowherd. Thus started the saga of the ugly cow.

Our next venture was to get into the purebred Gelbveih business. We replaced our herd with purebred stock all except the ugly cow.  I don't think she ever weigh more than 800 pounds. For some reason she just hung around, being bred to Gelbvieh bulls and producing a calf every year. She was always referred to as "ugly cow" because she was quite frankly the ugliest cow on the place. 

Fifteen years and fifteen calves later, so she was crippled up so bad she could barely keep up with the herd.  So she was culled and send off to the sale barn.  We got $225 for her and she weighed about 750 pounds.  We had paid $240 for her as a heifer.  So there you have it, the saga of the ugly cow, the most profitable cow ever owned by Triple B, Inc.  Average capital cost of the mother cow per calf was $1.

The boys have moved back to the plains and they probably need a few head of cows from which to learn life lessons such as the more expensive the cow the more likely she is to calf in an ice storm, etc.  I think I will have to head to the sale barn looking for that group of small framed heifers.  Then we will pelvic measure them and breed the best of them to a longhorn bull, the rest go to the back ground lot.  It would really would work well if I could  find the small framed calves from some purebred Angus breeder.  Got to be a few "ugly cows" out there, may not be pretty but they sure do make money.

Life lessons come easily on the plains. I would tell the saga of the cutting horse, the barrel horse, the burning trailer floor, or maybe the tree dog but this is enough wisdom for one post.

Alleluia Ruah