Then She Ran Into George Foreman...

I had named most of my heifers when I raised them, but some of them just had no name; mostly because they didn't show any particular personality traits that spoke to me, so I thought I'd wait until they came into the barn to be milked. Now, of course we have to train ten of them before they calve because once they do, they have to get down to business. Now they get to go through and see what is going on, get handled the way they will once the milking starts, except for putting the milkers on part.

This is actually where it gets interesting. Their personalities are coming through. I told you before about Cuddles. She is sweet and lets me pet her, but she was a bear to get out of her stall and into the parlor. She also didn't want to go back once we were done. She was such a brat that the cows she went in with actually fought to NOT get positioned beside her. Yes, I could absolutely tell this is what was going on. She poked her head underneath the cow in front of her (it's herringbone so they are both in front of or behind and beside another cow), and she being taller than the Jersey cross cows that are milking already, she rested her head on their backs while they milked. They hate that. One cow, we named Pot because she is always stirring the pot causing trouble, we knew would teach her some manners so we put her in front of Cuddles. Cuddles stood on Pot's back hoof and would not move it. I don't how Pot did it, but she actually waited until I was finished milking her and then she pulled her foot out from under Cuddles' foot and clocked her a good one. She stomped hard on top of her foot too. Cuddles hasn't set her foot on top of anyone's foot since. She also settled down immediately. She goes to and from the parlor pretty well now.

We have one with really long, straight legs that my husband named of course Legs. He observed that if she wanted to she reach out and touch someone at a great distance. Why yes, as a matter of fact she can. We had pretty much the same problem getting all the heifers so far to get out of their stalls and go back, but in the parlor where we are trying to get them used to being handled is where Legs showed how well she can kick. She hit the cow behind her and she shouldn't have been able to do that with that leg. The other one, yes, but not that one. She shook the entire section when she kicked the pipes holding the butt plates in place - floor to ceiling. She actually has done quite well now that she isn't scared anymore!

Then there is George Foreman. Yes, that is a man's name and a heavy weight boxing champion. She earned the name because she can hit with equal force with both back feet, as my husband learned trying to put her back in the stall and in the parlor. She left hoof prints on the wall when he tried to get into position in the parlor by closing the crowd gate behind her. I saw it coming and yelled for him to look out. Barely missed him!

Hero, the cow that knocked the bull on his behind every time he got near me, is perfectly well behaved in the parlor. Getting her there and back is the problem. She wants to go anywhere but either of those places. Otherwise, I can pet her, clean behind her, feed her hay out of my hand even. She did try to trade places with one I named Little Twinkle. She is named because she acts like one we bought many years ago that liked to swat at the milker (not kick- just swat) so it had to be babysat, and I got the honor. Twinkle liked to turn when I wasn't looking and give me a big lick on the head or steal my hat in the wintertime. She was goofy. Little Twinkle does the same thing, except she is an instigator and does not like going to and from the parlor. Again, well behaved once there. She never got along with George and doggone it she ended up in the stall where Hero goes right next to George. I told my husband that wouldn't do; they had to be traded, and he said no, he wasn't fighting them to trade them out. We had to break up a fight immediately. They were butting heads under the divider and George was winning. He said they'd stop. Within five minutes of my going to do my milkhouse cleaning chores he stuck his head in and said we had to trade the cows before George and Little Twinkle tore something up. That took a long time since they both like to fight going back to their stalls. But the war ended and all was right in the world for George and Hero.

There is another one I named as a calf who is mostly black with a small white area on her forehead. She eats on her knees for some reason and so I named her Sister Mary. She is another problem child. She actually crawls on her knees and her belly under the stall dividers towards the out door - underneath the other cows! We're afraid she's going to hurt one of them. She crawled her way almost all the way to the end until she met George Foreman! Yep, she put a stop to that in a hurry. Sister Mary is way larger than George, but George has horns in spite of having them removed as a calf. So, when Sister Mary got that far George having seen what was coming, lowered her head and let her have it. Mary stopped. We got a rope and tied it to her head so we could get her turned back toward the walk aisle. George, who doesn't like anyone in her stall with her, let us in and even moved over so we could tie Mary's head. She was under Hero so that could have been a problem, but she didn't want her there any more than George did, so she backed up. Mary finally crawled her way out and got up. I didn't think we would ever get her into the parlor and then wondered what damage she would do, but she actually was perfectly well behaved in there. I just don't get it. She still tries to belly crawl her way instead of backing out and walking.

Stripe was named as a calf because of the black stripe on her otherwise white face. She absolutely would not come into the barn even though she was raised there. The bull did not help either. He has a great deal of control over her almost like an abused spouse. I am seriously not making light of abused women here. She didn't do anything, even eat or get a drink of water, unless he allowed it. She also jumps like a deer and did several times right over corral panels. She did a dive over the gate and bent it like a dog eared page in a book. We had to use the tractor to straighten it back up. We finally had to lock her in the head locking feeder and tie a rope to her collar and then the other end to the tractor and back it into the barn. I took over at one point and my husband guided the rope so she wouldn't get hurt trying to get away. Once inside, she waltzed right into the stall. Go figure! The bull, by the way, is really ticked off that we took the last of the ladies into the barn. He has shaken the walls beating on it. We have yet to take her into the parlor as we wanted her to get used to being indoors first. We start tonight. She actually looks as if she might be the first to calve and after all the stress of trying to get her in for three weeks and the other cows acting up and fighting, we're wondering if she might do like Gertrude and have it early.  Wish us luck.

                                        Stripe cow. Difficult at best to get into the barn. Jumps like a deer.

George Foreman- the stripe down her face gives the impression she has gone a few rounds and broken her nose. The stripe is just in an odd place.

Cows with Funny Names

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!”

                                                        Dot: thinks she's Humpty Dumpty

                          

                                                        Cuddles: thinks she's a puppy dog

                                                        Whitie: balky giant white cow

                   Stripe: doesn't want to leave the bull. It's cold outside, stupid. Come in to the barn!

     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.

Selecting Cows for the Milking Barn

After six months of refurbishing our old pipeline system dairy barn to a parlor facility, (see previous posts) we are finally milking a few cows.

Christmas week my husband brought home cattle from an auction, one of which was due January first to calve. This was, as my son calls her, ‘Cowzilla’. We named her Gertrude. I am between 5’6’’ and 5’7’’ and this cow stands at eye level at the hip (her neck and head just add to her height). She is so long that she can’t fit in a single stall. My first question upon eying Gertrude was, “Why did you get this giant cow?” “She’ll be a hell of a cow when she calves,” he replied. I studied her a few minutes and then declared she couldn’t be comfortable in the stall he had her in; she’d need two stalls, and she was not going to make it to January first. He laughed. “I think she’ll go longer myself.” Uh-ha. First, she broke a water bowl trying to get up, using it as leverage. We moved her to another stall and fixed the broken line (she had twisted that sucker right out of the waterline.) I hung my head. “She needs a bigger stall,” I repeated. 

Next he discovered the cows actually preferred the other side of the barn, as in, they absolutely would not return to stalls we had them in and ALWAYS went to the other side. Simple solution. Move them there – including the giant Gertrude. (They still don’t go into the same stalls, but pretty much go to that side at least.) 

The next morning I learned I could milk all by myself as long as someone helped moved the cows to the parlor and back. I actually had to quit my job because they refuse to do this with one person (I was laid off all but one day a week anyway). Why did I have to milk by myself? Gertrude was very well stuck in the stall. Her front feet were sprawled through the head pipes, which are elevated on a footer about 8” high, her hip was wedged against a support poll and her head was caught under a divider pipe. I just don’t know how she did that. We tried for an hour until my husband finally called his brother for help so I could milk. They tried a prod, which I was about to use on them for being ignorant enough to think she could just un-wedge herself. Finally they cut the divider pipe enough to swing it off her head, which had to be done with a cutting torch that scared her half to death and left me in tears hearing her cry out. There really wasn’t anything else for that, but I was upset anyway. They had to use a come-along device to drag her off the support post and her legs out of the stuck through the pipes position. I don’t know how they finally got her up; her legs had to be near about numb, but they put her in a double stall (one the divider and support post had been removed from years ago) – where I wanted her in the first place. “You traumatized her enough,” I told him. I petted her great big head and scratched her ears. 

The next morning I washed her calf that was born shortly before we got in there (yes, as I predicted). It was in the gutter and she wouldn’t clean it so I loaded him in the wheel barrow and took him to the milkhouse where I sprayed and rubbed him clean with very warm water and blow dried him. My husband just laughed when he walked in and the little guy was looking up at me adoringly from my lap. I loaded him back up and took him to his own stall, fed him mama’s colostrum and put a nice heater-warmed blanket on him. I kept him a week before he went to market; for the moment, we only keep the girls (heifers).

Lesson One: Make sure the cow you buy will actually fit in your stalls. When Gertrude got stuck, sort of, again – her legs through the bars again, I propped her hoof (it was shaking from pinching a nerve) with my boot and spoke softly to her. “He’s going to get the prod again; you probably should try to get up.” He had been trying to twenty minutes. She made an effort to pull her feet back through and popped right up since she wasn’t wedged in this time. “I hate how you can do that,” he grumbled.

A couple other cows were smaller. I studied the guide page they had given him and highlighted the ones that he bought going by the auction stickers on their hips. Are you aware that these two have milking since February and April? The first one is bred, but won’t have a calf until July and the other isn’t bred at all. We had heard the term “Fresh a year” once at an auction which means they are not bred, they are near the end of their lactation and you won’t get a lot of milk out of them. Someone we were with (a Mennonite neighbor) even caught it and said, “That’s a cute way to put it.” They said it fast and hoped no one noticed. Something I noticed at the auction the week before, and had reminded him of before he went with his brother to get this batch, was the auctioneers lose track of the cows. They will read information from one cow when it is for another and conveniently not catch it until it sells. That’s what happened. Now the one that is due in July isn’t putting out much, but she’s milking and at least she’s bred. She’s Holstein and jersey cross. The only thing other than size that looks jersey is her red ears and a red stripe down her tail. I call her Skittles. The other one is Spanky and is not milking well at all and since she isn’t even bred, is slated to go down the street as soon as she can be replaced. 

Another one,(named Big Mama)is  almost as big as Gertrude, but she fits the stalls, walks with an odd gate. Since she was only three weeks fresh, we suspect she had some nerve damage when she calved. She comes out of her stall and will stand tripod on her two front feet and one back foot and stretched the other back leg out and shake her foot. She walks a few steps and repeats with the other leg. She does this all the way to the parlor and back. If she had done that in the ring, she would have a different home than ours. It’s comical, but it holds up the show and we aren’t sure what can be done about it. If she is suffering, we may have to ship her to slaughter after a clean bill from the vet just for humane reasons. 

Lesson Two: Pay attention to those stickers on the rump of the cows and match them up to the description sheet. You must, must, must get a description sheet, because that auctioneer will lose track and you will get a cow you didn’t mean to get or miss one you did. If you get a chance, go to the cattle area before the auction and look the cattle over for uniformity of utter, crossed teats, ¾ cows (meaning they milk on three of the four teats), visible foot problems, and other visible health issues, such as Big Mama’s odd habit of dancing to the parlor. It looks like a conga line when she gets other cows behind her. 

We found a few more at a ‘farm’ that was forced due to family emergency to cease milking. The barn was rented from someone who had not milked in almost twenty years and that place was in rough shape. The woman selling out told up not to judge the cows by the barn. You should, just a little. If the barn is in bad condition, it could cause the cattle to have illnesses – not necessarily outright diseases, but illnesses that are just plain trouble to the herd they go into that take a while to work out. This actually should be considered whether you go to an auction or a direct farm sale. It’s a little like going to school after months off and then bringing home every bug the other kids have. The cows were filthy with the exception of a few and we got the clean ones. Another problem with the rental barn is that they did not live on site so they noticed the bull messing around with a heifer (we got all young first or second calf heifers) and decided they were bred. They wrote them down as if they were, but two have come in heat since so we know they weren’t. We are with them over ten hours a day – sometimes longer if the water or silage freezes (topics for another day), so we catch it when they act goofy. We might miss the first time, but we’ll be looking for it the next. 

Now, one of the cows was named ‘Dutchy’. The people had gotten her as a calf from someone who had belted Dutch cattle and were trying for some reason to breed that out of them. They started over the years breeding brown Swiss and jersey into the blood line until they looked brown Swiss or jersey. Then the recessive genes went into gear and out popped a couple belted Dutch. We got one because she was clean and had a nice utter and uniform teats that weren’t short or crossed (a pain to milk). They added nonchalantly that ‘she has a little bit of attitude’. Don’t walk away from these cows – run, as fast as you can, pump your arms if you have to gain speed. We have renamed this cow ‘Pig’ because you have to hog tie her to milk her. She did well for the first week, being polite and nice, and then she almost broke my arm and my husband’s arm. Since we don’t have a ‘can’t kick’ device and have no idea how to use one in a parlor anyway, he throws a rope over her and ties her to the parlor posts so that she can’t kick as well. She still kicks. Dutchy is another one that will have to be replaced. I can't take a chance someone will be injured or the parlor (or cow) will be damaged.

In case you aren’t familiar with a ‘can’t kick’ device, there are two types. One is a sort of clamp that fits over both hips and tightens down so that the cow can’t move its hips (either one) to kick. Have fun clamping that down! The other one, which we had when we used the pipeline and stood or sat next to the cow in their stalls to milk them is shaped like a ‘C’ with one adjustable end to accommodate for length. It fit just under the fold when the leg and underside of the body meet and over the backbone. I have seen a cow knock that loose and break it, but usually it works. It has rubber caps on the ends so they don’t cut into the cow and they don’t injure them in any way.

Lesson Three: Pay attention to surroundings if buying directly off the farm and ask questions. Are they on a herd health program (vaccinations and such)? An auction may not have that information, but sometimes they do. How much time do they actually spend with the animals to notice whether they are bred or are they confirmed (a vet can do that)? Did they make any comments regarding the cows, such as a passing suggestion that they may have attitude issues? Get a veterinarian to check you cattle as soon as possible for pregnancy if they aren’t confirmed (auctions usually do this on sale day and will let you know) and start them on a vaccination program and worming program if you aren’t sure if they have been on one. One disease can wipe out your entire barn.

Something I have learned, and if you’re on a tight budget this can be an advantage, but if you need the milk; not so much,is  the mention that the cows ‘have not been pushed for production’. This means either the feed was poor or they weren’t fed a lot. Sometimes farmers feed only pasture or hay, not haylage, which is silage from hay. Some feed hay silage and corn silage, and may or may not feed dry hay. Others feed no grain or very little grain, or even a grain-based feed with no protein or minerals. Organic farmers feed this way a lot, without the grain. If the silage or dry hay is of poor quality, it affects the milk production and the quality of milk. One gets paid on quantity and other factors such as butterfat and protein; the higher the quality, the higher the pay per hundred pounds of milk. Not pushed for production may indicate poor quality feed or very little and they cows will not put out much milk. Unfortunately we are on a budget and that particular characteristic made them less expensive than other, better fed cattle. On the other hand, if the cattle are fed extremely high quality feed, making them milk in the hundred pound per day range, they also may lose production once they are brought to a new farm with good, high quality, but not as high as they are used to, feed. We have good, high quality feed, and feed a good grain and mineral mix. The high milk producing cows have come down a little and the low producers are trying to move up. Just the upset of going to auction and learning a new routine at a new farm stresses cows and cause a loss in production, and then add a change in diet. All sorts of issues pop up from milk loss to tummy issues (we’ll put that politely).

It doesn't make sense to milk more cows (thus taking more time) for the same amount of milk as if one milks fewer cows for the same amount of milk. It means higher vet bills because of more cows too, and if any feed is bought, even just grain with no minerals, the cost comes out higher because of more cows being fed. Just saying. 

 

Lesson Four: Pay attention to anything that may indicate how the cattle have been fed. It makes a difference in production and you may want to adjust your feeding plan to slowly bring up the quality of feed given to the cattle. More dry hay than silage for a few days and then move it up slowly over a week or so to more hay silage and introduce corn silage where there has been none at all a little at a time as you take down the dry hay, and add grain (if you’re going to feed it at all) slowly on top of the silage until you reach the rate you want for them. 

Are you buying cattle today?