Who is top cow at Shady Grove Ranch?

This is the first of a series of articles on our favorite breeding cows at Shady Grove Ranch. We have invested a lot of time and energy into our grass-fed beef herd and would love to share with you about some of our favorite personalities in the herd and why we like them so much.

The first is without doubt our favorite cow. We called her Gordita because she’s the fattest 100% grass-fed cow Matt has ever encountered. Here is her story.

Gordita

We bought Gordita at a discount because she is an unknown breed of unknown age, purchased from a colleague who was caring for the herd of a recently deceased friend of his. The colleague needed to get rid of some of the cows and was selling them for a very fair price despite their good condition (nice and fat on the lush green pastures of central Texas) and excellent naturally grass-fed rearing standards. We had actually worked with this colleague as part of our own farm internship experience and knew his standards for cattle-rearing were similar to ours (minerals, rotation, no chemicals, no grains, etc).

Since we were just starting out, discounts were certainly welcome. We planned to grow the batch and gradually butcher the finished ones.  Since this funny-looking, part Brahma, big fat lumpy old momma cow was already extremely “finished,” she first on the list for the “hamburger factory.” But Matt has a keen eye and suspected that she was pregnant. He decided to wait and see what would happen.

A few weeks after we moved, Gordita gave birth to the very first calf ever born at Shady Grove Ranch– a pretty, spry little heifer that we named Tiny. Tiny is our loveliest heifer in the herd, and we eagerly await meeting her first calf, due later this spring.

Will Tiny give us an outstanding new herd sire? Or a lovely future momma cow that has genetics perfectly adapted to our grass-based operation in East Texas? We’ll see. Farming is all about waiting to see…

Speaking of waiting, in our 3 years at Shady Grove Ranch, we have only a short glimpse at how well our cows reproduce. The reason is that cows only produce one calf per year, and that only when they are in excellent health. If one of our first cows were really good, she would have had 2 calves by now and would be carrying a third, typically breeding back within 2-3 of months after calving. That is true of just about all our momma cows, but Gordita is extraordinary.

Recall that Tiny, her first calf (to us), landed about a month after we moved onto Shady Grove Ranch. Her next calf, Mini (to carry on the traditional naming scheme), was born 324 days later (a cow’s gestation is 283 days). This is astounding because that means Gordita bred back in the astonishingly short length of 41 days after calving, despite the fact that she had just changed farms a month or two before. This indicates outstanding reproductive health and adaptability!

Just over ten months after Mini was born, Gordita went missing. She had broken through one of our fences and was acting a bit strange. Matt moved her back into the paddock with the rest of the herd. The next morning during Matt’s routine cow checks, he noticed that Gordita had some birthing membranes emerging from her rear-end. Perhaps she was about to calve. She was eating hay with the others, so he decided to check on her again in an hour. Experienced cows typically have their calves without assistance within an hour of when they start labor.

Matt returned to check Gordita. No sign of a calf. He decided to take her to the vet. He had planned to take animals to the butcher that day, so he loaded Gordita onto the trailer with the rest of the cows, and off they went. He dropped Gordita off first to allow time for the vet to examine her. When Matt returned, the vet came up and said, “Ain’t nobody home!” Gordita had already calved. She must have had the calf in the paddock to which she had escaped.

When Matt got home he and Zack searched the paddock where Matt had found Gordita the previous day. What he found very much surprised him: twins, male and female.

Having twins is quite rare for cows, and neither of them survived. We don’t know why—perhaps they were stillborn. It appeared that they never stood up after they were born. It was a disappointing day to be sure.

Now we were faced with a decision. From an economic standpoint, a cow MUST produce a calf every year in order to remain profitable. Cows eat way too much to be kept as pets. It is a hard truth, but it is like so many other truths in farming and life. Gordita was now on the cull list. It seemed she was getting too old to bear calves—we really didn’t know how old she was. We were a bit shaken by this decision because she is such a great cow and had given us two beautiful heifers in two years before this.

Matt called a friend and mentor who has been in the grass-fed cattle business for 30 years. His advice was a reminder that one of the best grass-fed herds in the world was produced out of five top-quality cows. If you have a fantastic cow, he said, you might want to give her a little grace from time to time.

Gordita is still with us, very pregnant, due to calve again in early March. Maybe if she gives us another heifer, we will name her Grace.

 

Thanks for reading! The next article will feature our Black Angus momma, and we need your help to name her once you hear her story!