From what I can find, a bred heifer sells for appoximately $1500 right now. A mature cow with a good breeding history will sell for more.
Probably not. My experiences with animal farmers are. . .not good.
Now that everybody has Ring and other cameras up, it turns out there are a lot of mountain lions in this area! Especially Yankton near the river. I'm not sure I want to put a camera up, might be better not to know, lol.
Yeah. Too many ranchers see their Cattle as just "assets", but I suppose they almost have to desensitize themselves to the fact that Cows are going to die because that's the end result for them when they get sent to a slaughterhouse for processing and rendering.Talien THANK YOU!!! People (including "experts") do not want to admit/realize that terrible wildfires have destroyed so much habitat that cougar are forced to seek new territory. With the overabundance of deer in MI, TN and the Carolinas, that I have seen with my own eyes, it might be a good thing to have lions reintroduced. Also, the cougar populations are dropping in WY because the flourishing wolf population is decimating cougar kittens. Here in CA, our lions are protected yet they are much less of a threat to humans than they are in states where they are hunted rampantly. As far as livestock decimation, I feel it is up to the ranchers & farmers to secure their livestock or keep llamas & donkeys & guard dogs on scene. Our state pays up to $3K for a pregnant cow taken by a lion yet the value of that cow was less than a $200 ranch call the other evening when a pg cow was stuck in the cattle guard; the cow was calm and a vet call with light sedative (not enough to knock her to the ground) was the only hope. The rancher refused to call the vet & my paycheck was in the mail or I would have paid for it myself. Instead the rancher first burnt her tail when he tried using his portable cutting torch (fortunately a wildfire was averted by bystanders who made him stop because the sparks were flying into 20' tall willow). Then he made matters worse by trying to use a sledgehammer & crow bar; the poor cow spooked and wound up with 3 legs stuck in the cattle guard instead of 1. At that point, I told the cow (who kept making eye contact with me and would quiet down when I told her to take it easy), "I'm sorry, Little Girl, but this is the end. Remember me when it is my time to Cross Over" and drove home. A tow truck was on its way at that point but, as I told the bystanders, without a vet, there would be only one unhappy result. The red pavement later proved me right. The mountain lion would have been more merciful for that poor cow (more like a calf herself but very preggers) who wasn't worth a vet visit.
