Survival Cattle: Mini Cows on the Homestead for Meat and Milk 

Me too. Love this, new (old) ideas, sensible, REAL, and great storytelling.

I only just got the Jersey. Traded some Cracker chickens for her locally.

​@@Florida_BullfrogDo you sell cracker eggs for hatching?

I did not know until recently that "zebu" is the family that all humped cows belong to. A brahman is a kind of zebu. When learning about the wild aurochs that domestic cows come from, I learned that all modern domestic cows fall into two groups, the taurine cows (which are the European cows) and the zebu cows (the Asain/African humped cows). Each group has its own wild ancestor that is not the same parent species as the other group. So we basically have two different species of domestic cattle.

Oh wow that is very informative , thanks for the info. What does their hump on their back. do ? Does it have some function for them?

Here’s the deal. ;-) Much of how we speak today has been “yankeefied” and we don’t know any better because yankee culture has dominated us for so long. I theorize that Florida was the last southern state to be thoroughly infested with yankee words, therefore Floridians probably preserved a more original dialect than other southern groups. Jesting aside, I’ve read letters from the civil war by northerners and southerners, and the vocabulary and sentence structure northerners spoke with when writing down verbal quotes sounded a lot more like southerners talk today than how southerners talked back then or how northerners speak today. Nobody today speaks how southerners did in the mid 1800s. We of course don’t know what their accents were like except from what we can hear from old civil war veterans who were recorded in the early 1900s (who didn’t have much twang at all), but the way they structured sentences was oddly verbose and formal. A yankee general would say “send us some ammunition, we ain’t got any,” while a southern general would say “we sadly find ourselves lacking in proper provisions of ball, cap, and powder, and request what munitions can be allotted and sent with great haste so that Providence may continue to accord us success upon our noble endeavors.” Then followed by an archaic quote from a general from antiquity. I’ve read that sort of flowery language enough in southern letter and reports from across social strata that I’m convinced they regularly spoke that way, while yankees spoke normally as out modern ears would reckon it. So I think in truth none of us in the south speak in a manner our forefathers from 170 years ago would recognize. It is possible that after the war, the poverty of the south transformed both the southern dialect and accent to ones that were less educated and formal than they were in antebellum period.

My plan was to start making them available now, but my brood cock is not out of molt. I do have some American game bantam eggs available that I sale for the same price. They're proven free rangers. I let them free range until they're near maturity then I pen them so they won't mix with my Crackers. So if I do end up making Crackers available again this year, it probably won't be until November.

@@Florida_Bullfrog ok. Thanks for the response. I’ll watch the end of November. There is no rush. I do enjoy your videos and your baby is just adorable. Looking forward to seeing the results of the calfing. I grew up along the Everglades and we used Brahma bulls because of the intense heat. They were so gentle. I learned to ride on a Brahma. Daddy would just throw three of us up behind the old bull’s hump and he’d follow behind dad’s horse. Years ago but remembered with fondness. Have a great week!

I probably live close to you. I am currently raising Bresse chickens.

I have got to order some of your survival bird eggs.

Yes, its actually popular to keep Asian water buffalo in Florida. I know someone who has a herd. He raises them on a submerged prairie.

@@Florida_Bullfrog Is he taking the milk and making stuff like cheeses etc and yoghurt, I ate water buffalo yoghurt ages ago and it was pretty damn good tasting, although i guess this also depends upon the cultures.

Hey I'm a farmer from India You can contact me if you are interested in murrah breed water buffalo

Yes its an electric fence. It will contain a cow well. Many larger cattle operations will actually only use a single strand of electric fence places around bottom chest level with the cows and it will keep them in place. I know someone who lives a ways from me through the woods that contains his herd of about 150 full sized cows with a single strand of electric fence. In principle its the same reason barbed wire works. The cows instinctively recoil back from paths of travel that cause pain when touched.

@@Florida_Bullfrog that's great to know. I was told that a mini heifer would be great on a small property like mine. But the concern is that it would tear through my fruit trees and food forest area that I'm developing (like my donkeys already did!)

I agree you couldn't let one have access to your food forest. I'm on home-vacation this week and later today I intend to move the cattle's fence. When I do I'm going to move them to the edge of my food forest but not actually in it. Otherwise I think they'd crush or push over all of the young trees I have planted there. I'm also finding that deer and rabbits seem to like to munch on banana leaves where I've put bananas out in the further reaches of my property. I have some good bananas in my food forest area I started this year and I believe the cows would destroy many of them. My great, great, aunt and uncle did grow bananas in their cows fields but they let the bananas pretty much grow wild and didn't care whether the cows ate or trampled them or not. I think the banana groves on their farm simply outpaced any damage the cows done. But up here I'm just getting my bananas established so I don't want to risk what the cows may do if they had access, and same with my other fruit trees. The bull likes to rub his horns on bushes. Doesn't seem to hurt the blueberries but I think it would kill my younger fruit trees.

@@RobertTozzi Thats also why I won't have any goats around. They tear everything up food wise. And otherwise ! lol

I would say that most homesteaders these days have office jobs for income. I do.

@@Florida_Bullfrog wow, I thought they just farmed or something.... I'm stupid

Homesteading is very trendy right now and many of the homesteading personalities on social media make money on selling themselves and homesteading experts. I notice than many homesteading techniques they use aren’t sustainable without pouring in lots of money and depending on outside sources of supplies. This is especially true of the chicken gurus. They’re all raising hatchery chickens on store-bought feed and generally not hatching their on chickens and raising them free range. If the day comes they don’t have access to hatchery chicks or bags of feed their chickens will be done.

@@Florida_Bullfrog interesting

​@@Florida_Bullfrogyou are right about the gurus. We actually let our chickens take care of their chicks. And we just feed them a little bit of corn in the morning and in the afternoon. There are plenty of bugs around to get proteins.

Yeah, I would say if you want meat it's not the best option.

More than a goat or a deer.

@@Florida_Bullfrog how does zebu meat taste like?

@@Florida_Bullfrog 500-700$ high dollar lean meat

its free meat. You only pay that for the breeding stock. You reproduce them and eat the offspring.