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?