Tanning and Bottle Making

[chuck123wapati]

15 hours ago, Sheilajeanne said:

Chuck, for many years there were two dairy farmers in my family. Of course they keep the cows for breeding and milking, but they are only 50% of the herd. The males are treated pretty much exactly the way male beef cows are treated: castrated at a young age, fattened up and sold for slaughter when they reach their full growth.

Beef farmers generally keep the females to increase the size of their herd. So, no, I don't really see the difference. The hide of an old beef cow is going to be just as stretched as the hide of an old Holstein dairy cow.

 i wont argue the point the book is correct. its a cool book but i wont use tar as a liner for my bottles, i will take my set of foxfire books over this one any day, especially the wheel wright section. 

Most dairy farms don't have bulls at all, so no they aren't really 50% of the herd, at least not more than one, they are useless to them and cost money, especially if they smell the neighbors cows. Beef cattle are sold at two to three years old that's where the majority of leather comes from. The young male dairy cattle and beef cattle are sold at two or before also don't have calves so their hide isn't ruined by either fighting or breeding. 

beef ranching is a whole different concept than dairy farming. biggest is and what your not getting is they don't keep the females to have calves over and over. they sell the cows after one, or two, if they want to expand, then raise the calves. they also don't impregnate the whole herd every year they stagger the breeding so they can stager the cash flow as well see the idea is to make a living. Bottom line is you dont make a living selling old tough beef you make a living selling young tender beef and you cant sell old hides either apparently. The money is made on the animal not the milk, you simply cant feed a beef cow for years and make a profit, they have one calf then off to the feed lots if a rancher wants to increase his herd size then maybe two calves so there are very very few "old" beef cows if any at all. 

After being sold by the rancher they are then fattened up in a feed lot. 

[Sheilajeanne]

Chuck, statistically 50% of the calves born are male. My uncles would castrate them and keep them until they were old enough to sell for veal. It may be different now, but that's how they did it. So, 50/50 sex split...male calves were pastured and grass fed, minimum cost as long as pasture was good.

[Klara]

Well, it seems cattle breeding is done very differently in different parts of the world. Here in France decent dairy cows are kept until they have serious health problems  - often only 3 calves for high-performance Prim' Holsteins. Or 10, if all goes well.

For beef cows it's basically the same, except they don't develop the health problems so quickly if they can give birth easily. Generally the whole herd (which is much smaller than in the U.S.) is impregnated (by a bull in the field) and the male calves either sold as calves or castrated and left to grow up (no idea how to translate broutard, sorry) for a year or two. The females are selected - the promising ones for the stable (replacing old cows or increasing the herd), the others for the table. 

[chuck123wapati]

22 hours ago, Sheilajeanne said:

Chuck, statistically 50% of the calves born are male. My uncles would castrate them and keep them until they were old enough to sell for veal. It may be different now, but that's how they did it. So, 50/50 sex split...male calves were pastured and grass fed, minimum cost as long as pasture was good.

 

Statistically yes but reality is no. Veal comes from two month old's at the latest.so no the herd isn't 50 /50 more than a couple of months on any dairy farm. Sorry Sheila its about money and profit and dairy people and ranchers are not making money feeding critters they cant feed for free that is the reality of life on a farm or ranch.

[chuck123wapati]

6 hours ago, Klara said:

Well, it seems cattle breeding is done very differently in different parts of the world. Here in France decent dairy cows are kept until they have serious health problems  - often only 3 calves for high-performance Prim' Holsteins. Or 10, if all goes well.

For beef cows it's basically the same, except they don't develop the health problems so quickly if they can give birth easily. Generally the whole herd (which is much smaller than in the U.S.) is impregnated (by a bull in the field) and the male calves either sold as calves or castrated and left to grow up (no idea how to translate broutard, sorry) for a year or two. The females are selected - the promising ones for the stable (replacing old cows or increasing the herd), the others for the table. 

yup cattle ranching is done differently even here in the US. it is really dependent on how much natural feed they can get on the land they have to use that created the different methods long long ago.

[Sheilajeanne]

I know for a fact that my uncles kept most of the steers until they were fully grown (about a year). Once weaned, they were turned out to grass. (Giving the calves their milk was one of my favourite jobs when I visited my uncles, and helped with the chores.) I asked what they did with them after that, and the answer was, 'we veal them'. So, evidently young cattle can still be sold as 'veal' at that age, just not milk-fed veal. I know how big these animals were, as I was with my uncle when he was loading some of them on a truck to take for slaughter.

Of course, weather and the market would help determine how long the non-milk producing animals were kept. Both uncles had all registered stock, so the heifers not needed as milk cows would still sell for a good price to other dairy farmers. If the pastures were not in good shape due to weather, I'm sure the steers were sent to market sooner than usual, to avoid having to feed them hay.

The trend now is to ship the calves to a feedlot at about a week old. And that's quite controversial, because a lot of them get sick from the stress and die, because their immune systems aren't fully developed yet.

[Sheilajeanne]

Klara, the translator won't translate bouvard either, but the word you're looking for might be un bouvillon for a castrated male. In English we say steer.

[fredk]

In English English we call them bullocks

[Sheilajeanne]

Bullocks because they're missing their bollocks?? 

[Matt S]

36 minutes ago, Sheilajeanne said:

Bullocks because they're missing their bollocks?? 

Pretty much! Bullock is from Old English buluca (from bulla + the diminutive suffix -uc -- "little bull"). Can mean either "young bull" or "castrated bull". Usually the latter in the modern era. Bollocks is derived from Old English baluc (bal meaning "swell" or "inflate" as in "ball" or "bellows" and same diminutive suffix -- literally "little swellings"). That's far too similar for me to think that it's entirely coincidental, especially considering my ancestors' love of a good pun and their earthy sense of humour.

There's also "ox", of similar Saxon antiquity, which is a (usually castrated) bull trained for draught work. We haven't done that here for a long time, yet J & FJ Baker specifies that they select "ox hides" . Having been there, got the tour and nearly fallen in the liming pit the fresh hides I saw were mostly from black-n-whites and somewhere around 40-50SQFT. That can't be a young calf (calfhides I buy are around 20SQFT). The colouring implies either Holsteins or Fresians which means dairy but they claim to only use oxen so I'd say they use hides from "surplus" dairy bullocks raised to optimum meat value.
 

On 12/31/2022 at 6:27 PM, fredk said:

I wonder how they get away with using bitumen in bottles and cups

For the last 25 years or so bitumen is only allowed to be used in agriculture by licensed users, eg arborists. Its forbidden for other uses

You sure that's not creosote you're thinking of? Bitumen is the thick stuff they use on roofs and roads, usually either melted or mixed with solvents to make it workable. I can buy a can of bitumen from a DIY shop but creosote has to be bought from agricultural factors... or you just buy it online and claim "yeah sure I'm a farm, honest, please deliver it to my suburban flat"  It's the stuff that telegraph poles and railway sleepers are soaked in and makes a lovely whiff on a summer's day. Depending how cooked off it was of those two I would imagine bitumen would be a lot more palatable in a bottle but I'd be bloody thirsty before I chose it. Most people I've spoken to who make blackjacks and costrels today use beeswax or brewer's pitch.