where in the world is stella blue
At Uncle G’s Farm we like to say we’re the biggest ranchers on our section. It’s true but it’s also true we’re the only ranchers on our section (a section basically 1 square mile of land between all the gravel roads in the country). We currently have a herd of 3 cattle so we’re pretty big deals! (that’s a joke)
Our only “cow” (a female who’s had at least one calf) is named Stella Blue. You may have seen her in our social media posts because she’s awesome. She’s had 3 calves which have all been males. She can have about 1 calf a year and we rebreed her after about 6 months.
We have another local farmer, Kevin at Lost Lake Farm (who’s a legit dairy cattle guy and an awesome all around human-being) artificially inseminate Stella for us. This year we’ve had a bit more trouble than usual which calls more extreme measures; baby camp!
Baby camp is what we call it when Stella goes to visit Kevin at his farm. She has done this before and we like to think she has friends at his farm that she enjoys visiting from time to time. This year is a bit different as it’s winter and she’s staying for at least a month. This will allow her to be bred and stay at his farm to see if she goes into heat again. Fingers crossed this time she will be successfully bred and we can hope for another little calf in about 9 months. (Cattle gestate in 9 months too, much like humans)
We took her to Kevin’s on December 26th. She doesn’t mind the ride but, once it became clear she was staying, she was pretty vocal about missing her boys back home (I don’t speak fluent cow but that’s what I assume she was mooing about). It’s also true that her boys (back at Uncle G’s) weren’t happy at all about her leaving and told us so before she was even loaded on the trailer.
It’s been about 2 weeks now and it appears that both Stella and the boys are adjusted to the new normal. Kevin says Stella is enjoying making new friends at his farm and only gets loud when he’s late to feeding her. The two boys back at our farm are busy eating hay and waiting for their corn snack in the late afternoon.
We think they will be super excited to see each other again in February when she (hopefully) comes back with a calf in the oven (so to speak). And, with any luck, she’ll have a little female calf (called a heifer) that we can potentially raise as breeding stock and increase the size of our herd.
Fun Fact: Stella Blue (Stella for short) is a Jersey cow but is pretty small for her breed (and Jersey’s tend to be smaller anyway). So Aunt TT and Uncle G are pretty used to “small cows”. When we visit Lost Lake Farm and see his full grown cattle, it’s a bit intimidating.
Fun Fact 2: We name our cattle after Grateful Dead songs. This is an homage to Uncle G’s sister Allison who passed in 2015 and because Aunt TT was a bit of a Deadhead back in the day. So far we have had Stella Blue, Rider, Tennessee Jed, and Casey Jones. We’re really hoping for a female calf because we’re running out of boy names from Dead songs.
Fun Fact 3: Our cows are mostly grass fed but we do like the taste of corn fed beef. We give them a bit of corn most days as a treat. We also raise them for our own use and not for sale. If we increase in size it’s possible we could sell one a year but that’s still a ways off.
This is an older picture of Stella being bred.
