My new bull came yesterday. His name is Dex, and he is 7/8 Dexter and 1/8 Jersey. I’m hoping to breed him to my Jerseys and get more dual purpose cows. Dexters are an old breed from Ireland, and are a small dual purpose breed (beef/dairy). Jerseys are a dairy breed, and I just don’t do much milking anymore (too hard on the back), and on top of that the Jerseys have been so genetically built up that they’re very susceptible to milk fever (when the cow gives birth, the demand for milk literally pulls the calcium from the body, which shuts down the organs), and I’m tired of dealing with that. The less drama in my life right now, the better.

Oh, talk about drama! Peaches, the blond cat that I’ve shown here on my blog, lost at least half of her 9 lives the other night. She was sleeping on top of the garage door when Christian closed it. He thought he heard something, so he went and unplugged the pool pump, went back and tried opening it, heard some more noise, stepped outside and looked up, and there was Peaches, with her head between the garage door and the frame of the house. He raced back to the garage door opener and opened it, she dropped to the garage apron and laid there. He picked her up, head lolling, and bought her into the house. He said he thought he had broken her neck, but then she started to revive and kick and scratch him. He set her down, and she ran off, a little uncoordinated. He got her and bought her into my bedroom and told me what had happened. I held her for a while, and the only thing wrong with her was the she was swallowing a little loud. By the next morning, she was back to normal, and right now she’s laying on my studio floor talking to me.

Anyway, back to my bull. He’s just about 1 year old, so he should be very capable of breeding Daisy May (this spring’s heifer calf) next year.

This is Daisy May, with Dex checking her out.

And here is Fries, checking Dex out (Fries will be going bye-bye in October. Yummm, ribeye steaks... apologies to any vegetarians reading this).

And here is a photo of Dex’s grandsire (Shelbo Miniature Cattle). Yes, that’s a full-grown bull. He’s a purebred, so Dex won’t be that small.