I told you about our experience with buying cows recently
for our new milking parlor system. In all fairness to the people with the nasty
barn, they were renting because they too were renovating a barn on the family
farmstead and due to the family emergency; that opportunity went away. I’m sure
it would have been miles better than the rental. They hated having to sell out.
Now, a couple years ago I started raising calves in our
barn. We initially wanted heifers because we knew we were going to start up
milking again, but with the cost of heifers at that time and peoples’ desire to
hang on to them, we ended up with a few bulls in the mix and as sale barn
calves go, they aren’t all that healthy when you get them for the most part. Me
– I keep them at least a week and feed them colostrum and make sure they are
healthy before they go. I have no control over what they might catch from
someone else’s calves, just as someone else has no control over what any I buy
might get from others’. We lost a dozen calves in spite of my best efforts to
save them. I also ended up with some called Free Martins. These are calves born
as twins to opposing genders. They tend to be sterile for some reason and we
ended up with three heifers that were such. They, along with one we bought at
about six months old (actually bred when we sold her) had to go. We held on to
them until a few months ago when it was apparent they were not going to breed. The
fourth one, a red Holstein we bought with a group from a cattle jockey (his job
is to find buyers for herds of cattle, as opposed to a hauler who just takes
them to market). She was nuts from the get-go but at the time we chalked it up
to being hauled around. He had bought her originally and had his hand raise her
and the others. He apparently didn’t realize (or maybe he did?) that she was
wild natured. She caused so much trouble in the barn and tearing up fences once
they were turned out she made the others a bit wild too. Of course she was NOT
going in my new parlor. He bought Crazy back assuring us he could work with her. Later he said we were right- she's just nuts.
Crazy did have an odd habit that another one from her
group, another red Holstein we named Dot also did following her buddy. They
stood on top of the concrete footer the tie stalls were attached to and played
with the pipeline that used to be in there. Dot still stands on that footer watching even though the
pipeline has been removed. She is really big- not quite as big as Gertrude the
Cowzilla, but we did end up with a handful of those heifers I raised that will
give her run for her money in size. Dot is actually not that wild now that ‘Crazy’
is gone and she is in the barn again. I finally asked her in frustration one
day, “What? Are you Humpy Dumpty? Get down!”
We have one almost completely white, of course named Whitie,
that did not want to come back in (none of them did actually) but now is much
more calm. Why not? We wait on them hand and hoof. Or is that hoof and hoof? We
decided that since she is due first we should try to at least run her through
the parlor to get used to it even though we won’t try to milk her yet. You’d
have thought we were trying to kill her when we tried to back her out of that
stall. She tossed and fought and at one point ended up completely backwards and
then turned back around head first to the feed aisle without ever getting out
of the stall. My husband actually giggled at her (trust me- this doesn’t
happen). Once we finally got her out after about ten minutes of this
foolishness, she went right in like knew exactly where she was going and right
to where we wanted her in the parlor! When we tried to put her back of course
she wouldn’t go. She balked at going back into her stall. She just stood there
and stared at it. I finally told the cow next to her stall, one I named Cuddles
(more on her in a minute) to turn and let her know it was all right to get back
in the stall. I didn’t really think she’d do it, but what the heck. She did it!
She turned her head and stared at Whitie a minute, let out a short incomplete
moo and turned away. Whitie thought a few seconds and walked calmly into her
stall. I looked at my husband, grinned and just shrugged.
Cuddles is and has always been just the friendliest cow. I
can take her head under my arm like a dog and pet her. I scratch her ears, her
neck, talk to her. She sniffs me, licks me when I can’t get backed up fast
enough, and moves when I tell her to – the right direction. I can get into her
stall without fear of being stomped. She might steal my hat though. I’ve had a
cow like that before.
Connie, short for Connie Butt Kicker, got her name because
she does not like it when someone tries to clean her stall. She also backs way
up when someone is front of her unless she is stealing a mouthful of silage
from the wheelbarrow as it passes by. She’s real good at that! She got her name
as a calf. My husband used to mess up Chuck Norris’ name when Walker Texas
Ranger was on and so he called him ‘Johnny Butt Kicker’. Since cows actually
use a bit of a round house kick, something she is very good at, I called her
Connie Butt Kicker. If I call her name and get her attention she will move and
let me clean it and put down fresh bedding, but if not; she will show you the
business end of the shovel in a hurry. The jury is still out on whether she
will make it in the parlor when the time comes.
We also have one of the heifers that absolutely refuses to
go into the barn. She literally turned and jumped the corral when we tried to
get inside and there were four of us! She has strange markings being mostly
white on one side of her head and just a wide black smear down her face on the other
side. Obviously her name is Stripe. She used to be fairly calm. I don’t know
what got into her but she has to come in soon since she is due as far as we
know in February to calve. We need a vet to do a pregnancy check on the ones
who aren’t obvious to gauge a time frame. Like a rebellious teenager; she doesn’t
want to leave her boyfriend.
We got one from that farm I discussed earlier who is also
almost completely all white with a few spots. The people had another one really
close in looks that was named Spot. Since the mister kept mistaking the two and
his wife had to remind him ‘that’s not spot’ that became her name: Not Spot.
She answers to it too. She’s pretty calm and even though her bag isn’t real
big, she milks well and it is her first lactation so we’re thinking it will get
better next go round.
At the auction, somehow my husband managed to get three
almost identical black or nearly all black cows. They are so similar in size
and demeanor they are hard to tell apart. They all three cause trouble, even
though they milk calmly for the most part, but they are almost always covered
in their own doings, if you know what I mean. We got cow trainers put up mostly
because of these three. It takes a while to give them all a shower before every
milking. The hubby named the one that is
just about completely all black right down to her udder Pot because she is
always the instigator and stirring the pot. The other two have partially white
bags so can be distinguished from Pot. I had them named before I realized one
had a white spot on its head and her name is actually Blackie. The one without
the black spot is Kettle. Yep, couldn’t tell them apart any more than Pot could
so we got Pot called Kettle Black. It’s a catchy way to remember it. One has
fat teats and the other skinny, otherwise I couldn’t tell them apart from my
angle in the parlor.
We were feeding the milking cows the other morning after I
was done cleaning the milk house and the heifers were singing or something.
They kept saying in tandem Moo in a low hushed tone, almost chanting. I told my
husband they were either doing yoga or meditating, or maybe they were
anticipating their silage and singing the Campbell’s Soup commercial theme
song: Mmmm Good! He said, “I think you’re right!”
Dutchy: a/k/a Pig (from previous post). The face of evil, or someone read her Fifty Shades of Grey, because she is really into bondage! Belted Dutch with jersey red ears.
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