The Herd on Windyridge
The cattle are a big part of our lives on the farm. I’ll share with you what I have learned about cattle so far. Males are born bulls, but a small herd only needs one bull, so the others are castrated when they are young, which turns them into steers. Females are born heifers. After a heifer has her first calf she becomes a cow. Steers are typically what are taken to the butcher to become beef. You can butcher a heifer or cow, but that is bad business since a cow can give you calves and increase your herd. Bulls, steers, heifers and cows are called a herd of cattle.
We owned the property for many years before building a house, and my husband, David, had a small herd. The original cows were of the red Limousine variety that he bought from relatives in Oklahoma. He bought a Black Angus bull for breeding what he hoped would be small calves. We had a couple of them before he decided that the ornery Black Angus bulls like to fight too much. They were always getting into a tussle with the neighbor’s bull and tearing up the fence. The Black Angus bull together with the red cows, produced both red and black calves.
When David got tired of fixing fences, he got his first Hereford bull. They are dark red with white heads, and sometimes other white markings. The Hereford bull, together with the red and the black cows, produce red calves with white faces, and black calves with white faces. Cattle with white faces are called baldys. Our current bull is Curley, named for the blonde curls on his forehead. We sell all of Curley’s calves. Some bulls have horns and some don’t . Some cows have horns and some don’t. David likes to say “It’s not the horns that make an animal a bull.”
Like most living creatures, the babies are much cuter than the adults. I love to watch a new calf frolic and dance, and kick up their heels. Stories about the cattle appear often in my books; many have happy endings, unfortunately, some don’t. I hope you will enjoy reading about our herd on Windyridge in the cozy mystery The View from Windyridge, Book One in the Jillian MacSweeney Mystery series. (Coming Spring 2026)
