Meet the Herd

Ginger

Out of our current herd, Ginger was the first to come to us. She is a Red Hereford/Red Angus. She came with the name, it seemed fitting, so we left it.

No, we do not milk her as she is a beef breed. She is a wonderful cow. Docile, halter trained, and an exceptional mother.

 I like to call her our matriarch.  We bought her with the intention of letting her live a long life here and breeding her to build a beef herd. Although we have changed course to focus on Dairy, we are still striving to feed our family with quality beef and have plans to offer beef to our community in the future.

Fun story – She adopted and fed an orphaned calf last year while raising her own calf. She really stepped up and helped us out a lot by doing so.

Peaches

She is a pure Brownswiss. She is around 8 years old now. Her name is fitting as we like to call her Peaches n’ cream.

She came to us when she was 6. She was raised in the depths of an Alaskan village and was a loyal family cow her whole life. When we brought her to Fairbanks her transition was rough, but we’ve learned how to care for her and try our best to ease her into new situations slowly as she is very sensitive to changes.

Shes an amazing cow and we plan to take good care of her during her old lady years.

Elsa

Elsa is a Red Holstien. She came to us with the name Elsie. At the time my boys enjoyed the movie Frozen, so we changed her name to Elsa. .

She isn’t the queen of the herd, but we love to treat her like a queen anyway.

She is 3 years old and due to have her 2nd calf May 2024. We are beyond excited. She is an eager girl, always up for any situation it seems. She is a very reliable milker; she carried our herd share for almost an entire year on her own. We are so thankful for her.

Ember

We named her Ember because of the deep red color she was when she was born. She has kept that coloring too.

Ember is Elsa’s first calf. Ember was born on January 1st and is now a year old. She is 1/2 Holstien, 1/4 Montbeliarde and 1/4 Brownswiss.  

She is sweet as pie, well-mannered and amazing with our kids. We can’t wait to be able to milk her in another year or so.

Lavender

Lavender is our youngest heifer. She is Peaches calf from 2023, born in August. I knew before she was born I wanted to call her that, simply based on the color I knew she would be.

When she came out, she had a beautiful cream coat but quickly turned into the deeper lavender grey coloring that is typical of the brownswiss breed.

She is quirky and gentle. Very calm most of the time. We have tried to socialize her with our kids and other animals often. Putting her in new situations, when possible, so she will be less inclined to inherit Peaches sensitive personality. Although, I can already tell she has her mother’s loving side.

It takes years to build a cattle herd. Cows have about the same gestational period as a human. But it has been worth the wait every time. Building connections with these animals is a large part of why we do this.

I hope you get to meet these amazing creatures soon!

As we will continue to have calves each year, I would love to hear what cow names you come up with! Comment below.