Ah, Lando Cowrissian. It's been fun. Your departure is a bit sudden, but definitely for the best. We have never raised a large steer through winter before, and we will never do it again. What a pain in the butt! Before we took the critters off pasture for the winter, Lando (and Mooku) managed to tear down the fence around the winter chicken run, the orchard, and the greenhouse.
Now that they are in the big corral for the winter, he smooshed down more fencing to get into the greenhouse and has completely destroyed our hay feeder. OK, he's just being a steer, but enough is enough.
He has not gotten aggressive yet, but is getting close. He's a pain to get into the barn at night, and he starts to swing his head around in my direction like he knows he could shove me around, but he doesn't. He DOES push around Shannon. Which is never OK.
But the straw that broke the camel's back? We have 4 lambs with broken legs. Time for the steer to go.
Poor Jabba the Hutt had one rear leg broken, and within days of having his splint removed, the OTHER rear leg got broken - he's back in a cast again. Cedar had a rear leg broken up in his femur within days of being born (he is now out of his splint). And now poor Death Star also has a splint on a rear leg. Prior to this, in the 10 years we have been raising sheep, we have had 2 other broken legs, one was clearly attributed to our error in getting a lamb's leg caught in a stall door.
It's our job to raise and protect these babies, so though Lando has been fun to have around, and Larry really wanted to grow him out big, we decided to make an appointment. On top of that, Arapahoe had a cancellation on Monday and in he goes!
He should be back from the processor in the beginning of February. We still have 2 quarters available and you can reserve your quarter here.