That’s a great way to do it. I raised quite a few family milk cows to sell as bred, trained and ready for their family. Some are still active milkers.
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I know someone that got into keeping a house cow on small acreage. Something adorable in a Jersey or Jersey cross. She also used an AI technique that gave her a higher chance of getting a female calf, and sold those as house cows. More lately she has been advertising freezer beef 
so she might have gone a different direction there. She also had a couple of small home bred steers her kids were training as oxen to pull things. I haven’t seen her current farm IRL, it’s FB, so I’m thin on details.
Up here (Canada) cows and heifers that need to be bred but do not need to be bred to produce replacement heifers are often bred Angus (still AI) for higher value as meat animals and higher rate of survival. Heifers that cannot “catch” go to freezer camp. It’s rare (up here) for anyone to send a heifer to an actual bull. It happens, it’s just not commonplace.
The only thing worse than an animal you don’t want is one you don’t want that then turns around and dies on you despite all the best care. Holsteins calves can go from ok to dead in a matter of hours. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating. As we learn more about diseases that afflict the young ‘uns, we get more proactive with preventative care, but there are still way too many that have no reliable prevention - I’m lookin’ at you, “Salmonella Dublin.” Angus crosses are more robust in the immunity department.
If you want a pet cow then I would recommend choosing a steer. Otherwise you are dealing with hormonal cows and of course you don’t want a intact male( bull). Dairy cows usually have a more docile temperament but any cow you get will need regular handling no matter what.
A bottle baby will need intensive handling to be taught who is boss . Cows are not much different than horses in that respect.
I have had 4 family milk cows over the years, just 1 at a time and while I wouldn’t classify them as a " pet", I took the time to halter break each and every one of them and I could interact with them in the same way I do my horses. I did breed and milk them but I also enjoyed them thoroughly.
All that to say if you have a cow as a pet you will need to work with it to keep it an enjoyable experience.
They don’t do the pasture any favors and are as hard on them as the horses. My current steer shares the pasture with my 3 horses just fine. We just make sure to drag it every Spring. Cow pies do not break down well over time.
We have always used the Angus bulls on the ranch to breed Daphne. A small heifer bull is what you want for a 1st cal heifer. We had to pull Daphne’s first calf although that bull was a small but very muscular pet named Peanut. My plan was to raise the heifers to sell for family cows but all Daphne ever had was bull calves. We banded them. That is, when the calf is a few days old you wrestle it down and but a special kind of rubber band above the testes. They go numb and fall off, no blood, pain or flies. I sold all these big steer weanlings at auction for more $ because they were black like Angus and not showing so much much dairy character.
This latest calf one month ago Daphne produced a half Angus heifer calf. She is cinnamon colored with big black rimmed eyes, long eyelashes and her mothers disposition. Since Daphne is getting on in years I will keep this one for my next house cow. Her name is Lilly of the Valley.
Here is the problem with modern dairy cows- in my experience they can’t raise their own calves. Modern dairy cattle have been bred to be milk machines not mothers. Their teats are way down around their hocks, not tucked up under the flanks like beef cows and as nature intended. The calves must have colostrum within the first 12 hours of life for their immune systems to function. The little claves instinctively and continuously search up around the cow’s flanks. I have had to go buy colostrum and force it down them by making them take a bottle. This has happened with every calf.
Another thing- Because of dairy cow udder edema milk does not flow well through the tubules until the edema goes down. So I give them bottles of milk replacer just to keep the calf alive long enough for it to figure out the udder. This has happened with all Daphne’s calves. I don’t mind and it makes them tame and easy to handle and halter break without a rodeo. You just have them on a lead and following for the bottle. If people are not interested in milk, and regular milking, milking hygiene, making cheese, yogurt, butter and icecream is a full time job, it is best to get a steer calf that is already imprinted on people. Such as a kid’s 4H project or a bottle calf.
About keeping cattle with horses- cattle do push and break mesh fences, even barb wire fences, determined butting with their heads to get the grass on the other side. Cattle don’t eat the grass around their own pies but eat the grass around horse piles so these two types of stock can be rotationally grazed. Cattle will clean up wasted hay that horses don’t want. Playful male horses will chase and harass calves. I keep my mini stallion away from Daphne’s calves because he might hurt them and break their legs. Horned cattle I would not trust in with horses because if horses can get hurt they will. Although Daphne has no horns and Angus cattle are naturally polled. When no small calves are with Daphne the horses and cow get along fine.
Daphne is actually more of a pet than a horse. She sleeps near the front door and stands at the window and watches TV at night.
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Thank you
Now I want a pet cow. Also a little goat that wears sweaters.
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We had one cow, Carlye, who had to have help feeding every one of her calves. I left them with her, and she would love and care for them, and tolerate all their attempts to draw milk. After the first couple of weeks, i’d release them into the fold and hunt them down three times a day to bottle the calves. The calves were never hard to find as they would hear the milk-wagon approach and come running. This particular calf is named Clunie.
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Is that Mom in the background? SO adorable! And the calf? What a sweetie!
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Here’s a thought. Most people that I know DO learn about their animals. I didn’t start out knowing a bunch about cows, but I learned what I needed to. My cow flourished. Happy cow!
I don’t know a bunch of horse folks who want to raise a whole bunch of cows. This thread is about PET cows. Probably one or two at a time. NOT production.
What I don’t need to know about? Anything that involves slaughter. Oh, and being insulted by someone who is under the impression that we are all morons.
You are under the impression, I guess, that we should understand how to raise a bunch of cows, because that’s what you do. And, from your ivory tower, you are implying that we are ignorant about cows, and what YOU do.
Just a thought…you might want to look at the thread title, and consider your posts. Just a thought.
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Here’s a thought - the OP has asked the same question over and over and has been rude and unwilling to understand that asking a question about animals on this forum is going to get a whole lot of information flowing.
Glad you’ve been lucky with your pet cows. It doesn’t always go that way. You might want to consider learning a bit to be prepared for when something eventually does go wrong.
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And I did learn on the job, taking care of her. I consulted with my Vet, and folks that I knew who had cows. Why would you think anything else? You are choosing to believe that the rest of us are incapable of a learning curve. Some things are mostly common sense.
I’d rather a post be removed than edited. Especially over a month after it was written and the conversation is all but dead anyway.
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WOW. You think THAT’S narrow- buckle up!
I loathe the dairy and beef industries for a myriad of reasons. It wouldn’t occur to me to want to listen to a lot to learn a little. Especially about what I absolutely do not want to know. I want to be able to feed and care for the animal- and, just THAT animal. If I get in too deep, I can make a phone call. How challenging is that?
Now, I am going to shout, “I do NOT want to know!” about production cattle farming.
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Perhaps if you open your ears and eyes you would see that nobody here is trying to force or even suggest production farming on anyone.
What is being suggested, and is true, is that there is more to cattle than a fence and some grass just like there is more to horses than a fence and some grass.
Thankfully, cattle, like horses seem to have an innate ability to look after children, invalids, and the ignorant so for the most part they will look after idiots who don’t know what they don’t know.
No one has denied that. It seems to be the opinion that you do not need a PhD to have a pet cow.
You seem to believe that you do. I simply do not share your opinion that one needs to know all that there is to know about cows in order to have one. Or dogs or chicken or pigs, or anything else. I do think that you need to have a basic understanding of animal husbandry. The rest you learn along the way. The important thing is to know when you are out of your league, and call for help.
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But some times novice pet cow owners do not know when they are out of their league. For instance, calf birth. My husband is a retired Texas cattle rancher that with a veterinarian partner, made videos about bovine dystocias (difficult birth) that were sold all over the United States.
Here is one thing novices don’t know that can lead to death of both cow and calf- a heifer that is having her first calf- when you see the first sign birth is underway, the 2 little front hooves poking out of the mother with the sole of the hooves facing downward as newborn calves literally dive into the world, or if you see the amniotic sack protruding from the cow’s vulva-- if the young heifer does not make progress beyond this within an hour after signs are seen, she is in trouble and the calf needs to be pulled.
If it is a cow that has had calves before she has 1/2 an hour to make progress then she is in trouble and the calf needs to be pulled. How would a novice know these things? They see a cow in labor and think everything is fine. Another thing- it is best to observe birth from some distance as cows, being prey animals do not like to be watched while they are so vulnerable.
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Cattle are BY FAR the easiest animals i’ve ever had to deal with. Hands-down.
We were a sheep breeder for 20 years, with 150-200 sheep along with their guard llamas. Parasite wise/climate sensitivity wise…handling them every three weeks, sheep are NOT for the lazy! We kept about two dozen cattle at the same time. And i can see why cattle are ubiquitous whereas sheep are few and far between (at least in warm-humid climes…because of Haemonchus contortus,commonly known as the barber pole worm).
You can’t convince me cattle are difficult…( i’ve raised sheep) and have 18 horses too…so, cattle are a piece o cake in comparison!
