|
New
breeds of pint-sized heifers and
bulls are making it easier for small
farmers to raise cattle for milk,
meat or just fun. |
Don't
have a back 40?
Try mini-cattle for your back four acres
By
ALEX DOMINGUEZ | Associated Press
TRAPPE,
Md. - If you're a suburban cowboy
hankering to raise a herd and short on
ranch land, mini cattle may be for you.
On
Bill Bryan's 50-acre spread on Maryland's
Eastern Shore, he has sold seven calves
this year.
"We've sold the vast majority of
our calves to people who have these little
three- to five-acre farmettes and they'll
fence in an acre, buy a calf and more
or less keep 'em for pets," Bryan
said. Two mini cattle calves stood nearby,
contentedly munching on grass in a small
fenced-in area, skittering away if visitors
got to close.
Bryan
is among a group of pioneering breeders
raising miniature cattle that can be as
little as a third of the size of the larger
breeds.
The
reasons are many, they say. You don't
need the back 40 acres to raise these
breeds; the back four will do. Mini cattle
eat about a third as much as a full-sized
steer, are less destructive of pasture
land and fencing, and are easier to handle.
"I'm
56 years old, and you want to know something?
I can handle them better," Bryan
said, recounting a struggle the winter
before with a full-size steer who got
his horns caught in a hay rack.
While
each animal may be smaller, more meat
can be produced overall from each acre,
breeders say. And the smaller size of
each animal also has its benefits.
While
some people look to save money by buying
an entire cow or a side of beef, it can
be difficult to store the hundreds of
pounds of meat from a 1,200- to 1,500-pound
steer, of which about 40 percent makes
it to the freezer.
Miniature
cattle, which often are between 500 and
700 pounds, provide enough meat to last
a family of four six months. That's just
about the freezer shelf life of beef,
said Bryan. And the meat tastes the same,
depending on how the cattle has been raised
and fed.
Bryan,
who runs a construction business, said
his wife, Donna, does most of the farm
work, spending about two hours a day taking
care of their animals.
"Women
can raise these steers just as well as
men can," Bryan said.
Bryan said most of his calves will die
"of old age" because buyers
are usually looking to breed the smaller
cows themselves or keep them as pets.
Miniature
cattle calves are more expensive than
the standard size because they are still
relatively rare. Bryan said he is getting
$1,600 for female calves and $1,000 for
bulls, compared to $500 to $600 for normal
calves. But he expects prices to drop
as the mini varieties become more common.
Richard
H. Gradwohl, who has developed a number
of small breeds at his Happy Mountain
Miniature Cattle Farm in Covington, Wash.,
said six niche markets have developed
for the miniature breeds.
Miniature
cattle are primarily sold for use as pets,
for small-scale milk production, breeding,
showing, organic beef production or for
the farm-grown market, which produces
cattle on smaller farms, Gradwohl said.
Sixty to 70 percent are sold as pets,
he estimated.
Full
miniature cattle are defined as those
below 42 inches at the hip when fully
grown, while mid-size miniatures are up
to 48 inches, said Gradwohl, who registers
26 miniature breeds.
Another
factor driving the popularity is that
most people don't have enough land for
full-sized cattle, which need five acres
for two cattle, compared to an acre for
a pair of miniature cattle.
"The years where we had people with
three, four, five hundred acres are gone,"
Gradwohl said. "If you have five
acres with miniature cattle the concentration
is about two per acre, so you can raise
10 miniature cattle on five acres quite
well."
Those
10 mini cows will provide about 6,000
pounds on the hoof, compared to as much
as 3,000 pounds that could come from two
full-size cattle, Gradwohl said.
"That's
true because of the feed efficiency of
the animals, and their hooves are smaller
so they won't tear up the pasture,"
which helps maintain the grass they feed
on, he said.
Cattle
that can be raised easier on grass only
is also an increasingly desirable trait
because grass-fed beef is said to contain
higher levels of heart-healthy Omega 3
fatty acids, breeders say.
However, finding growers who raise miniature
cattle for beef is still fairly difficult
because of the rarity of the breeds and
the fact most are raised as pets.
In
Felton, Del., Charles Warren has a half
dozen Zebus _ miniature humpbacked Brahmans
_ which he says are the only true miniatures
because they are naturally small and have
not been bred down to their size.
Warren,
who works for Kraft Foods in Dover, Del.,
keeps the five cows and one bull as a
hobby, along with a variety of other small
animals on his 25-acre property.
"They're
like a pet more than anything. I like
them because they're neat looking, they're
oddities," Warren said.
Warren
said he hasn't eaten any or sold any for
slaughter, with most going to breeders
and some to a rodeo outfit.
"My
wife won't eat anything we grow on the
farm. She says if it doesn't come on a
Styrofoam tray we don't eat it."
On the Net:
http://Minicattle.com:
http://www.minicattle.com
Bryan
Farm: http://www.bryanssouthsidefarm.com
Miniature
Bull: http://www.miniaturebull.com
Miniature
Cattle Corral: http://www.miniaturecattlecorral.com