Halter breaking begins in earnest!
February 12, 2021
My first experience with halter breaking last year did not go well at all. That said you learn very quickly that babies inherit many things from both sets of mom and dad. Needless to say we got through our first experience but definitely decided that we did not need to continue with the original ones we tried to halter break.
The next two are 8 months of age solid black and 1/2 sisters. Hosanna and Hadassah! Complete opposites apparently. We got halters on them and we are slowly and carefully petting them all over. Lead ropes applied but not really tied them up yet. Just allowing them to drag them around and not be too confined. Oh I know we are going to tied them up and then the real fighting begins and they will throw themselves on the floor and feel like they are going to die until they learn to "give" to pressure. This part will begin this week. The two 1/2 sisters are very opposite from each other. One is much more accepting of us and the other one tolerates us but much more weary. That is ok! These 1/2 sisters are 4 days apart and close to each other.
We two red heifers we will start this process with next week. Taryn has had some halter experience when she was much younger but we are going to reintroduce her to it again. The other red heifer is Delilah and she is so pretty! Red is always my favorite color in Dexters. Now Taryn is almost old enough to be bred in 2-3 months. I cannot believe it! So we need to get her very used to the halter and handling her because we desire to hopefully make her a good milk cow at some point. Her full sister Tovia will be made into a milk cow also. Tovia is another one we will need to work on soon. Tovia has the same mom and dad as Taryn and is so pretty just like her mom Dakota. Dakota is our FAVORITE cow! She has so much personality and just a GORGEOUS cow period.
We are so blessed to be able to do this life of raising Grass Fed Dexters. Thank you Lord for allowing us to do this. We love connecting to your animals and learning how to take care of them properly! Come visit Apafia Farm any time. Just please make an appointment so we can be ready to meet you and take you around to see our wonderful cows.