April 15th will mark almost two years that Angel and I have been raising beef cattle. In 2022, we finally acquired a rag tag assortment of 13 mixed cows. Many of the original herd were lost due to a variety of unforeseeable circumstances, but we have replenished our numbers through the birth of cows born on our land in Shipochano. We currently have 14.

Our first calf, Mikey Lunch was born either April 30th or May 1st 2022. Being novices, it took us a while to ascertain if it was a male or a female. When he first arrived, Angel called me to say that their was a large dog in the field… on closer inspection we saw that one of our “Crooked Horn” cows had given birth.

When we purchased the cows, we were told that some of them were pregnant. We just weren’t sure which ones… There were a few non-viable pregnancies that didn’t produce a living calf, but also the trauma of child birth claimed the lives of the mothers. Our philosophy towards our animals is survival of the fittest. We don’t assist in anyway during the birthing process. If they don’t survive, we won’t intervene.

Our next calf was born on September 4th 2022, which happened to be my sister Veronica’s birthday, so it seemed only fitting that we should name the calf in her honor… Again, we weren’t sure how to tell the sex of the newborn, so we had the name Vern ready too.

Following Veronica, Sophia Loren was born on September 20th 2022, the same day as the famous Italian actress. She is brown with white spots and a triangle like spot on the middle of her head. These three surviving calves arrived pregnant from the former owner.

Our goal was to try increase our herd size and get the cows pregnant. In August 2022, we were given a bull called Pesho. He was very stupid and not excepted by the herd. I am not sure if he was too young, sick or whatever, but he didn’t manage to get the job done.

In October 2022, we found Martin. He was a beast… he was loaned to us for a month to get frisky with our cows… He was sent to the butchers in November… he went out with a bang… now we needed to wait to see if he was an actual stud.

Last summer, we found out that he managed to sire… 3 live calves. The first was Vicky. She was born on July 12th 2023 which happens to be the birthday of my daughter Boryana’s friend and CSKA volleyball player, Victoria Dimitrova. You can tell her apart because she has a large white stripe going down her side.

Next up was born on July 31st 2023, so as a huge Harry Potter fan, we named this female calf “JK” after author JK Rowling. She almost looks like a Highland cow and a spitting image of her father.

A few days later, Gerald (AKA Johnny, as Angel likes to call him) was born on our niece’s birthday August 3rd 2023. Her middle name is Geraldine, so for this male calf, we decided to name him after her. JK and Gerald look like twins. Their father’s genes are strong. Besides the twigs and berries… JK’s tail has a white tip.

As Mikey was maturing, we weren’t sure when he would be able to be the bull of the herd, but he rose to the occasion. We were certain that he wasn’t related to any of the other cows, so we were happy to find out that a few of our ladies were pregnant.

The first birth of 2024 was Ronaldo, born on February 5th. He was born on the birthday of Christian Ronaldo, a famous footballer… apparently, he is quite famous.

5 days later, on February 10th, Emma Roberts was born. One look at here and it is obvious who her father is… You can’t miss her distinctive white face.

After a few weeks, we welcomed Joseph on March 5th, so we named him for my brother Joe, who has a birthday on March 7th. What is interesting, is the Joe’s mother is Veronica. The cow named for my sister. He has a black tip on his tail, so we can tell him apart from Ronaldo.

There are possibly two more cows that are pregnant and will give birth this spring. I will update this post if and when they arrive.

Angel handles all of the day to day care of the cows. He knows their ins and outs. He has learned so much about rearing cows in these two years. He is a real cowboy. All he needs is a horse.

You can read more about my Beef journey here.