Selecting the Right Animal

so you've got two types of cows that you'll probably take to the market and you guys are welcome to post comments down there if you can think of any other situation where you might take a cow to the market to the market meaning to the butcher shop the abattoir or the slaughterhouse abattoir is a fancy word for slaughterhouse so what we had was a cold cow a cold cow was a seven year old cow that you typically would not take to the butcher shop she was a brood cow she was a brood cow that continued to fail at breeding she wouldn't take or she would have a stillbirth so this cow had a stillbirth last year she had foot problems last year she had foot problems this year and i just decided it was time to take her in her weight was somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 1600 pounds we took her over to the butcher shop she dressed out hanging weight at 827 pounds that is a heavy heavy cow that's one type of cow that you might want to take to the butcher shop okay the other type of cow would be a cow that you raised out yourself so say you went to the sale barn and you bought some young heifer cows or some young steer cows and you're gonna raise them out and i use cow as a broad statement as a bovine animal we can talk about that too cow is a animal that is either pregnant or had a baby open cow is a cow that is open and is not pregnant a pregnant cow is obviously a pregnant cow a heifer is a cow that's never been bred a steer is a bull without his man parts so that's what we're talking about here okay typically you're going to take a steer to the butcher shop you're going to raise a steer out to be anywhere from 12 to 18 months or so now there are certain rules and laws