Welcome to Moosters Meadows - home of Irish Dexter Cattle! We strive to breed a truly dual purpose Dexter, providing both excellent beef and milk. All of our Dexters are purebred and registered with the American Dexter Cattle Association (ADCA). We'll be blogging about what goes on here on our little ranch in Wyoming and life with Dexters. Feel free to visit our website as well.







Sunday, April 28, 2013

Gypsy's Day of Beauty

 
We're getting close to that time where we have to make our final decisions on who is going to the AGM with us this year.  The show girls have been looked over from every angle and I think we are down to the final few. 
 
Since the weekend weather was beyond gorgeous, all the girls had a shampoo and blow dry on Friday.  Saturday was Gypsy's day of beauty since she had the thickest coat we've ever seen - and it was high time to find out what was underneath.
 
 
Her tail head made the most amazing mohawk with golden tips. 
 
 
She's really well behaved in the grooming chute.  Love that calm Dexter acceptance.  No kicking, no fuss....
 
 
It's too bad that the picture can't do justice to the depth of the coat here, but you get the idea.  There is a beautiful shiny black coat under all that winter baby fur!  The clippers clogged so often that it took a while to get the first rough cut.  I'll share after she's had her next one.  Love, love, love her!  She's definitely headed to the AGM and a summer of showing.
 

 
 





Tuesday, April 23, 2013

April Showers? Not Quite!

So, that's three Mondays in a row in April for snow.  Fortunately, this week was a bit lighter than the last two, so we didn't bring the girls up into the yard this time.  We'll still be hopping over cow pies for years to come.....  The good news is that we'll be warming up soon - a typical skip spring and go directly to summer kind of year again. 

Our Cinder was due last week, so we put her in the stalls as the snow started.  Fortunately, she waited until the snow stopped before giving birth to a lovely little (are you ready?) red, polled heifer!  Meet Moosters Salsa:

 
 
Once the snow started to melt, we opened the gate so that Salsa could explore a bit.  She zipped along like she knew exactly was she was doing.  Eventually, we moved them both back to the pasture with the herd:
 

Neither of them were too excited.
 
 
 
More calves to come.  Luna looks like she's ready to explode any minute, so we're thinking somewhere in the next few days.  And we still won't be done!
 
 


Saturday, April 13, 2013

Dance Partner

Meet Moosters Dance Partner
 

He's the horned son of CJS Resta and 'Dance.  We think he's going to make an awesome little bull.  Partner will be for sale this fall when he's weaned.
 
Black, carries red, A2/A2, horned, parentage verified, chondro and PHA free
 
Plus!  He has the sweetest temperament already.  His momma has a beautiful udder, still, at 8 years old. 
 

 
 


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Winter - I Mean Spring - in Wyoming

The weather reports were right on target this time.  On Monday, we moved through a weather advisory, to a winter storm watch and finally on to the warning.  We're signed up for the Niobrara County emergency notifications, so the home phone, cell phone, text message and emails rolled in from the county as well.  You'd have to be oblivious to not realize that we were going to get some significant snow.s

With so many calves and a not so big run in area for that many momma Dexters and baby Dexters, we did something we've never done before (but now plan to make a permanent feature):

We cobbled together a gate for our lane and opened the gate from the pasture to our yard and machine shed (where we store all the "spare" hay).  Chris got busy on the tractor and moved bales until we had enough room to fit all the girls and the kids.
Half the crew thought they were getting away with something (and hit the alfalfa bales really hard!), the other half were steadfastly staying in the pasture run in even when the snow started:
We moved them all up to the yard and machine shed.  The calves soon decided that this was the life!

 
And the storm arrived as predicted (for a change!):
 

 
It snowed through Monday night and most of the day Tuesday.  We're well over a foot and the drifts are amazing -- 

 
We woke this morning to a rainbow with the rising sun.  Just beautiful.......  No complaints here.  We're grateful for the moisture that the snow brings to our very needy pastures. 

Now we just have to convince the whole crew to go back where they belong tomorrow!

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Another surprise

This year's calving season has been so full of surprise and intrigue.  This week's latest was an unexpected set of twins!  Unfortunately, the little (and I use that word literally) female was stillborn, but the bull calf appears to be doing well as of this writing. 

 

We'd been watching Swallow most of the morning because she was restless and wandering the pasture alone.  I had to run (okay, drive) to town for an appointment, so Chris was in the pasture checking on her when I pulled up to the house.  He met me inside with a serious face and the news that Swallow had calved and that it was dead.  He asked me to come with him to remove the calf because momma was frantically trying to revive it.  Imagine our surprise when we got back to the birthing spot to find a just born second calf!

Poor Swallow.  She was still attempting to revive the first calf,  then she'd rush over to the new one and give him a quick lick.  Since he needed all of momma's attention, we knew that we needed to get the dead calf away, but momma wasn't having any of that either!  Chris finally edged the ATV over the dead twin while Swallow was attending the live one for a moment.  He was able to pull the dead calf underneath and lay her in the back of the ATV.  We backed away and watched as Swallow's confusion left her and she became a momma to one.

The dead twin was a heifer who apparently didn't thrive well in the womb.  She was sunken looking, weighed next to nothing and didn't take a breath after she was born.  Since she was the female twin of a bull, she'd have also been a freemartin (sterile) had she lived.  The horned male will probably be "Swallow's steer" as that will be his destiny and we don't usually give the steers "real" names. 

We're sure hoping the rest of the season is uneventful.  Ten live calves on the ground and five more to go for spring.....we're a few weeks away (I think) from the next one.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Everybody Loves a Good Fight...

This morning, like most every morning, I take a walk to the pasture to check on the girls and the calves.  It's usually early, so the deer and turkeys are often around as well and most of the time, it's live and let live.  Not being a turkey expert, I can still guess that it must be mating season in turkey land.  The boys apparently fight over the girls.

This is what was going on - two males dueling in the pasture.
This is the audience!  They called and kicked dust and generally behaved like a bunch of drunks at a bar fight.  Then they realized that the kids were watching too -- so they ran as far away as fast as they could go!
Still acting like total goofballs, but headed away from the fight.
Several of the girls just couldn't help themselves and had to go take another look.....

All in all it was really an entertaining morning!

***My apologies for the quality of the photos.  Usually I have the camera and my smart phone in my pocket when I go out for my morning walk.  This morning both had lower than low batteries, so I grabbed Chris' not so smart phone.  It did take pictures, so I guess it's not so dumb after all.