Heavy Delivery, March Newsletter

A few weeks ago, we had what you could call a special delivery and about 3000lbs of it.  All the way from our family’s dairy farm in Wisconsin, came 1 pregnant Angus-Heifer, and 4 bull calves (soon to be steers).  Now, before I get into all the fun of our delivery, we need to go over a few definitions of cattle vocabulary.

Angus is a breed known for its meat quality. 

Heifer is a female cow that has not borne a calf

Bull Calf “intact” male cow

Steer no longer “intact” male raised for beef

Okay, so that last one I am not going to go into all the details, but I feel like the point has been made.  Now that you have the terminology firmly grasped, back to our bustling barn.  As I write this Newsletter, our “mama cow” is just days, if not hours, away from bringing a calf into this world.  This will not be just any calf; this will be a Wagyu calf.  Wagyu is a type of Japanese cattle and are known for their premium cuts.  Waygu, sometime referred to as Kolby beef, is sold in high-end restaurants where the steaks cut like butter. 

The “steaks” are high for this birth, and I’m getting a little anxious.  That might be because my first calving experience was not ideal.  Back in my early twenties, I went to my boyfriend’s dairy farm for our first Christmas together.  (If you have read my back story, I happened to marry this former dairy farmer.)  One Christmas Eve night, my dairy farmer boyfriend needed to assist a cow in giving birth.  I, being twenty something, and still totally naive with romantic notions of farming, wanted to watch this miracle of life.  Long story short, after an hour of standing by the cow’s backside, the calf was unsuccessful in making it into this world.  I was crushed and surrounded by farmers whose experience in losing animals is just the facts of running a farm and therefore they were confused by my silence and watery eyes at dinner.  Looking back at that night I am glad to have had the painful experience.  Because after the tears I realized I still wanted my life to be rooted in agriculture even if it meant things would be difficult, or sad, and quite frankly, a lot of work. 

Now back to 2022, with my now corporate working partner and 3 small humans, we wait for the arrival of our most expensive addition to our barn. I will keep you up to date with any news from the cow-pen when we start to see some action. If this cow starts cleaning her cupboards and finding her barn-mates utterly annoying, from experience, I will know that she is ready to have this calf.

All puns in this newsletter were intended!