April is a Hard Month

You may have noticed I didn't write much last year, if at all. It was a hard year, and this one is not much better. April 2016 hit us hard.

Our beloved dog Chaos had to be put down on the 17th. She had been declining steadily with health issues and on that Sunday, when there was no way to get a veterinarian, she fell - several times actually. She had gotten unable to go down our few steps out of the house so we had to help her, and the return trip up was worse. Her back end was constantly going out from under her as her spine had fused in some places and outright dissolved in others. She was in pain in spite of the medication she was on. First she fell in the barn. It was her ritual to go for at least a little while just to get out of the house. I would take her in just before we started milking because we couldn't keep an eye on her and there was just too much for her to get into out there. After she kept falling I finally took her back to the house. When we got back a few hours later she was sprawled on the floor in her favorite spot right where I had left her. She had fallen trying to get up, probably to go get water, and she could not get up for anything. We managed to get her up but she winced, which told me she had tried and failed at least a few times and had bruised something. We got her up and she managed to get a drink but it wouldn't stay down and she didn't eat. Then she fell in the living room and within an hour her abdomen was swollen almost double and she whimpered. I got a look and saw it had started turning purple. She had ruptured something and was bleeding inside. It was the hardest thing we ever did to have to get her outside and put her down. There was nothing else that could be done. We mourn her loss daily. Honestly, I can't even see a picture of a yellow Labrador retriever or any dog that looks similar, without bursting into tears even now, a whole year later.

Then just a few days later I found out that the supposed pneumonia my father had been suffering from for over 6 months was not actually pneumonia. I told my mother to get another opinion from other doctors for several of those months. By the time they figured out (at another hospital) that he had Squamous Non-small Cell lung cancer he only had days to live. He kept saying he didn't want me there because he didn't want me to see him that way. I finally made arrangements to go anyway about the time he started calling for me at the hospital in his delirium. The first leg of my flight out of Wisconsin to Chicago was on time. Then the flight from Chicago to Miami (odd way to get to Tallahassee) was delayed. Then when we got to Miami the connecting flight to Tallahassee had already left and they had to book me on the next flight out later that evening, except the pilot never showed and they cancelled the flight until mid-morning the next day. No one had any flights out that night. He died early in the morning and I had missed the chance to say good-bye. I will never get over that!

My dad passed away 12 days after we lost Chaos. So, you see, April is and always will be a very hard month for me.If it weren't for my dear cats, I'd be totally lost.

                                                Chaos

                                                    My mom and dad (They are holding my first book)

Implements of Husbandry?

I've heard a lot over the months about new highway laws regarding implements of husbandry. The government sure uses strange terms. Implements of husbandry actually refers to farm equipment. Now, if someone would please tell me where they get that name, I would really appreciate it. The implement part I get, but the husbandry part I don’t. My HUSBAND doesn’t even know where it comes from. It’s not like one can marry a piece of farm equipment or have an inappropriate (or supernatural) relationship with it and create children. 

I could understand farm animals (males) being referred to as husbandry, because of the obvious need of a male to make more farm animals. Yes, I know, people use artificial insemination, but it wasn’t artificially created in a lab somewhere. It came from a male animal. Maybe it is an antiquated term once used to refer to draft horses or oxen used on the farm. (You hear that Budweiser™, you can’t drive your beer to the warehouses anymore using draft horses without a special permit!) 

I even understand the laws changing because equipment is getting larger and heavier and doing damage to paved county roads (that once were gravel), and highways. Fines are unbelievable if one doesn’t get an expensive permit every time they pass over the roadways and they get caught. The places to get the permits are often far from convenient for the farmer who needs them, and trust me, when you need to transport equipment, you need to get going. Sometimes there is only a small window when the weather cooperates and to have to go get a permit might take up that window. Farm equipment doesn’t exactly qualify for NASCAR in speed.  

Wouldn’t you think when they update the laws, they could update the terminology as well?

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.

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?