Homestead Cows
The Complete Guide to Raising Healthy, Happy Cattle
Every farm needs a cow – open the gates!
With an approach built around investing for the long term, Homestead Cows prepares homesteaders and small farmers to open the farm gate to cattle, whether a single milk cow or a small beef herd.
Homestead Cows covers the A to Z of husbandry:
- Cow history, biology, diet, and nutrition
- Understanding what you want, what's involved, and creating a plan
- Selecting breeds and determining herd size
- Housing and facilities, transportation, and equipment
- Financial management and the dollars and cents of cows
- Breeding and reproduction
- Cow health and happiness, including safety, handling, and good husbandry
- Processing, products, and cooking.
Cattle are the most productive, versatile, and low-input sources of food and revenue on the farm and can help regenerate and build soil. The secret to success is excellent management, and Homestead Cows distills decades of hard-won, practical knowledge into an essential guide to successful small-scale cattle farming for every homesteader and farmer.
Callene and Eric Rapp have owned and operated the award-winning Rare Hare Barn since 2005, the largest heritage-breed meat-rabbit enterprise in the United States. In addition to their conservation work with rabbits, they have a large herd of heritage-breed Pineywoods cattle, and work with the critically endangered Palmer-Dunn strain. Callene has also worked with a variety of cattle breeds at the Sedgwick County Zoo, and Eric has had experience with his family's own cow-calf operation. They have over 50 years of combined experience handling nearly every species of domestic livestock and are active members of the Livestock Conservancy. Callene is also a regular contributor to Grit Magazine. Authors of Raising Rabbits for Meat, they live and farm in Leon, Kansas.
