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Again, we welcome you to Oz highland Farm. Our farm is owned and operated by John and Debbie Jenkins of Auburn Kansas. We have both been raised on farms and we continue the tradition with the Scottish Highland Cattle.
We purchased 3 Highlands as a gift to John's Mother to honor her Scottish heritage. But in the end we got hooked. Being impressed with what we saw, the search was on for additional breeding stock. We have grown our herd to over 150 Highlands (and counting) with 3 working bulls. Each spring we await the newest Oz Highland Farm results. Did we match the right cow with the right bull? Only as the spring calves start hitting the ground will we know for sure.
Oz Highland Farm consists of 600 acres. Some of the land has been in John's family since settling here in the 1850's. The old farm house, where John's Mother lives and was born in was built in 1856. She is happy to look out her windows each day and report back to us if she sees a new calf. She loves to be the first one on the hill with news.
Our Highlands are raised with care. We maintain our cattle on a balanced mineral program, free choice hay during the winter months, cool season grasses during the spring and fall and during the summer months we run the Highlands on native prairie grass and legumes. Our Highlands are never given any type of growth enhancing drugs or antibiotic feed. We raise all natural beef from the land.
We strive to improve the herd through our selection and culling program. Our goal is to not keep or sell any animal that would pass on genetics which would lower the animals conformation or gentleness. It's important to us that any animal we sell is of good quality not only as breeding stock but for meat quality as well.
Other characteristics of Highland cattle is their grazing habits. They eat and browse what is there while clearing timbers of brush, cedar trees and other undesirable vegetation. Cedar trees will take over a pasture in a very short time and are a major problem here in Kansas. Highlands love cedars and as you can see from the photos on the left, they don't leave much when they are finished. Any branches within reach of a Highland is fair game and become great places to scratch and eventually they are broken off and then, in comes the chain saw. They can clear a small timber in less than 1 year. The more time they are in it, the more they will stomp and break off everything they can. We have found this to be of great benefit to us as it makes clearing out larger cedars and other undesirable vegetation that much easier. It makes fencing easier and when you have cattle, fencing is always a job waiting for you.
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