I was wondering, what is your favorite farm animal that you have had or still have now. It could be a working sheep dog, or a milk cow. What is your favorite?

Here's my favorite:

Here is when she was just born:



Here is she at about 12 months:



And here she is with a new calf of her own:




So, what's your favorite one?

Your heifer is lovely! One of my all time favorites here is our old Longhorn steer. He is a loyal and trustworthy leader.

I love cows .. Baby looks like mom
Love the Long Horn...

Names

I can't locate a photo, but my favorite farm animal was Wally -- a very feisty but friendly quarterhorse mix. He originally lived next door in rather dire conditions: mucky and swampy pasture coupled with an impoverished owner. During one bad winter, the owner asked if he could rent out our front field for Wally. I agreed, but also agreed that for every month he defaulted on rent, that would be a credit toward our agreed upon value of the horse. If his arrearage rose to the point of the value, then Wally would be my horse. As expected, that is exactly what happened, and the owner honored our agreement (I think he was secretly relieved). Wally was a great horse - short but quick, could turn on a dime (he was trained for gaming) and always came running to the fence when his name was called. He eventually got old and developed emphysema, but I have many fond memories of him racing up our back hill with one of the kids hanging on for dear life but whooping all the way!

porkpal said:Your heifer is lovely!

Thank you! I liked her a lot. I ended up selling her to a happy owner who now milks her.

As to names, I call her Frenchy, and she would actually come when I called her. It's a lot of fun to call a cow in from pasture, and have her come running up to you!

Wow, that Longhorn is amazing!! I love the long horns on these animals and wish that I had one. I wouldn't want to be poked in the eye though!

@Bonehead, I love horses! Having one that did fun tricks and stuff like that must have been wonderful. I love watching horses do their thing. Of course, riding them is fun too!!

My Longhorn also comes to his highly sophisticated name: MooToo. He is a wonderful lead steer who will unfailingly do what I want if he can figure out what it is, and the others follow along. He can't lead them into the chute as his horns won't fit, but once he has them in the attached corral, we can herd them the rest of the way. I am looking for an apprentice for him as he is now 19 years old.

That must be wonderful to have a steer that will lead the others wherever you want them to go. I don't have any that will do that, but one cow will come when she is called, and the rest of the herd will follow her. I could never lead her though.

Oh, I don't actually lead MooToo - as on a halter - he just follows me because he is mannerly. I have tried to halter break a number of calves with no lasting success.

That's even nicer. I love when my little calves follow me.

I have halter trained five calves, and they all have been varying levels of success. Each one improves. I definitely did the best job on Frenchy.

You have to start them when they are small and they don't realize that they are being taught. LOL I broke steers to lead for many years when I was in 4-H. I found the easiest way was to tie them to feed them. I had them in a big pen, and it was a bear to get them caught and haltered the first week, not to mention trying to drag them to their "spot" to feed them. It wasn't too long that when I went in the pen in the morning to feed them before I went to school (my mom untied them later, when she helped dad feed the beef cows), they would blink at the bright light, lazily get up and walk over to their places, waiting for me to tie and feed them. LOL

Mine were always weaned before I was able to work with them............a 6 month old beef calf CAN be a bit of a challenge.

Yes, it can be a challenge to work with older calves. The other day I was feeding some yearlings, and one of them was never touched by a human hand in his life. I was feeding them some treats and walking around. They were following me quite nicely, so I showed the one who had never been touched, a halter. He sniffed at it and decided that it wasn't going to bite him. Then I slowly and carefully put it on him. He fought it a little bit, but didn't really take off. Then I started to lead him around. It was quite fun to see a cow who had never been touched until that day, then be haltered and led around.

I usually start them as soon as I can though. Generally that's at about a day old, maybe a little older. I'm training one right now, and she didn't really know that she should fight it. Now she's just at that age when she thinks that she can go where she wants to. I always win though.

I had a steer once that was SO stubborn that I had to tie him to the back of the tractor. He got the idea after that.

The Angus were the worst, I only had a couple of those in my career. They were so blasted touchy. I had the Herefords. They were pretty laid back.

Wow, that's pretty stubborn. At least something worked!

I've never tried either of those. In fact, the yearling that I was working with was the first beef cow that I've ever tried to halter train. I'm glad that he cooperated so well!