Wild New Cow Moms

In the over 30 years I have been farming, I have never seen cattle act the way this current batch of heifers is acting. I have raised dairy, beef, and a cross of the two, and never saw them try to bash or eat their young. I am glad mine are currently tied up in the barn or we’d have a lot of dead calves. I have seen them ignore their babies or favor one twin over the other and literally knock the one twin away, refusing to let it nurse, but this behavior is very strange. 

Our first heifer to calve, Stripe, squeezed it out, cleaned it up, easy-peasy. She wouldn’t let it nurse, which I have seen several times, but we took her in and milked her and fed it – no problem. She went by the stall every day (twice) and stopped and yelled at it for some reason (maybe wondering why it was there instead with her) but now just nods at it. That’s funny. 

Then Dot, our only red and white holstien, had a bull calf and we thought she was going to stomp it to death. Every time we put it near her she screamed as loud as she could and pawed at it and smacked it with her nose. She licked it sort of, but spent most of the time trying to bite it. She, at one point, grabbed its foot and started to throw it. I got it away from her and dried it myself in its own stall. She shut up immediately and pays it no attention when she goes to get milked.  She is just as calm as can be going to her stall and to the parlor and in her stall. You can do anything you need to without her kicking, except milk her. Then it is a rodeo. It has been a week and she still acts as if she doesn’t know what is going on. Go figure!

Cuddles, so named because of her demeanor, had a heifer and licked it a few times, but also screamed her head off at it. It was deafening. She tossed it around with her nose and tried to beat on it with her foot. I thought she was trying to get it into a better position to clean it, but no, she wanted to eat it. Another one I had to dry off and mother. She gives it a glance on her way to the parlor, but otherwise pays no attention. She milked like a dream for all of two days and now kicks at the milker; not anything like Dot, but has be tied up to get the job done all the same. I suspect her bag is so full she is in pain until some of milk goes down and then she settles down. I can dip her and she doesn’t even twitch an ear. 

This morning we got out to the barn just in time play catch with another heifer from…George Foreman. Heaven help us. She acted pretty much like the others. She went nuts and even tossed me into the wall across the feed aisle. I was trying to keep the calf in licking distance but she didn’t want it near her. Another one I had to clean up! We thought she’d tear the parlor apart, but she stood perfectly still and let us milk her. Hmmm.

I understand from the latest report that Legs, so named for her extremely long and straight legs which can reach you anywhere she wants to kick, is about to deliver her calf. I think I’ll need ear plugs and armor for this one.

Anyone know what the deal is with these cows? The cold maybe? It is awfully cold.

UPDATE:

Legs had a baby bull. She actually didn’t try to eat it and Dot, being in the stall next to her, actually helped clean it. It looked black at birth at my husband named it Shadow. Once he was dry we discovered he is actually brown! After selling the last bull calf, I discovered half-jersey calves, being on the small side, don’t do well at market, and for that reason declared I wouldn’t sell any more of them. We’ll just have to find room. Husband agrees. 

Oh, Legs milks without beating the crap out of anyone, unlike Dot.

 

Gosh those little calves are cute. I still need a picture of Shadow.

                    This is Petunia. I'll see if I can catch her standing up and not drinking a bottle.

                         Ghost! Her face is marked crooked just like her mom, George Foreman.

New Baby

Yesterday we got to the barn in time to see another calf was about to be born. At least we were in there for this one. Now, Stripe cow does yell as she goes by her baby Tessa, but she licked her clean and did all the nice cow mom stuff she was supposed to and was protective. She calls out for her calf and the calf returns the call from her stall down the barn. Gertrude just ignored hers completely and I was ‘mom’ until we sold him.

Dot, on the other hand, is the darnedest thing I ever saw, and people, I have been raising cattle a long time, as in, off and on for over thirty years. She was quietly dealing with her labor while we moved the ladies in and out of the parlor to milk. During the second round I noticed the feet heading out but she wasn’t done by the time we were. It was, however, completely out by the time we got the first half (4) back in their stalls, so we stopped what we were doing to deal with getting the calf up to mama so she could lick it clean. 

This important for a lot of reasons: 1) It cleans all the yuk off the calf and dries it. 2) It stimulates the calf to breath – like when they smack a human baby’s bottom to make it cry the fluid out of its lungs. 3) It warms the calf. 4) It stimulates the mama cow to finish the delivery process by expelling the afterbirth. If she doesn’t clean out, she’ll get an infection that costs a lot to clear up and it could interfere with her being able to breed back. 

What Dot Did

Dot sort of licked at her calf. We had to babysit her cleaning it to a point where my husband forgot we had cows still in the parlor waiting to be put back until I reminded him. We got them put up to much foolishness as they wanted to play with the new baby and we had to stop them. This being done, we were back to monitoring the cleaning process. We constantly had to push the calf back to his mother (it was a bull) and she would just scream at it. I’ve never seen a cow scream at her calf that way. It was like she was saying to it, “So you’re the reason for all my discomfort!” The reason we were monitoring her when we normally would have left her in peace? She kept trying to bite him. Seriously! She opened her mouth and almost took off an ear. She bit his neck. She went for his side. She had his foot in her mouth. She kept pawing at him with her front foot. We thought at first she was trying to get him into a position where she could get to him better, but she was knocking him out of the way even though her instinct told her to lick it clean. We made sure she did the licking part and she did most of it before she got too out of hand with him and we finally just took him away and finished cleaning him off ourselves. She calmed right down. Weird.

We took another round into the parlor even though she would be the only one to get milked so we could get the colostrum for the calf. There was no way she was going to let him nurse and she wouldn’t allow us to hand milk her. The calmest cow we had, even in training, went totally berserk when we actually tried to milk her. (Yup; had to hog tie her.) But, I got the colostrum and fed the poor little guy and made sure he had his blanket on him because he was shivering. It is cold up here! He ate well though.

Later, after the chores were finally finished, we sat across from the calves watching them. The new one was breathing funny and my husband thought he might have gotten pneumonia since he didn’t get the proper stimulation to get the fluid out of his lungs, but then I noticed how he had him tied up and jumped up just in time. His breathing got worse by the second and he was gurgling. I said something colorful and grabbed my pocket knife and cut the string free and started stimulating him to breath. My question to my husband was why does he always tie a slip knot on their necks? He didn’t think it was a problem the way he ties them. I had to inform him it was because I ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS, have to go back and either retie or start from scratch, the string he uses to tie them up because it tightens up on their neck and chokes them. He has just never seen it I guess. I had to teach him how to tie it so that it doesn’t slip and choke them anymore. We’ll see. The calf is fine and breathing right now. No meds needed. 

I won’t give the little guy a name. Bull calves are worth too much right now to keep him and we don’t have our calf facility set up yet. We’re using unused cow stalls for them until then and it isn’t that much space – only four stalls. We can fit 8 little ones in that, but once they start to grow they’ll need the stall to themselves. 

Are you getting a barn full of new calves?

 Our newest little guy to the barn. He is so darned cute; it's a shame I have to sell him.

 

Tessa photobombed him. 

Mom- Dot

Welcome Tessa

Yesterday we made it to the cattle auction towing Spanky. She needed a new home. Since my husband lost track of the auctioneer back in December, he ended up bringing home a cow that had been milking since April and still wasn't bred back. This is not normal for milking cows as they stop giving a decent volume of milk and she stopped just about all together shortly after we got her home. We thought we'd at least put some weight on her, but even though she could pack away the food, she just didn't gain weight. (Most people would love to do this!)

To market she went, but there was a sale too, with a lot of milking cows and several registered Holstiens. They must have had a lot of hair since they were outside in a freestall barn where it was cold because they shaved them down some. There was one little cow that they advertised as being a high producer with a low somatic cell count (that means she didn't have mastitis), but they did a poor job shaving her and she was some kind of thin, which means if she is a high producer then she puts her food into making milk, she was also taller in the back than the front which just made her look odd. Well, that didn't bother us! There were hardly any bids on her so my husband literally threw his hat in the ring. They weren't paying any attention to our area and he had to get their attention. We won the bid. Since she was running milk (because they didn't milk her that morning) he named her Squirt! She was actually used to being milked in a parlor, but apparently it was a different type than ours. Once she figured it out though, she was fine. Hooking her up is currently the challenge. Freestall cows aren't hooked in and don't wear collars unless they are being used to robot milk the cows. The robotic unit reads the tag on the collar or the ear to know whether to milk the cow or not. I hope she gets used to it soon, like before she dislocates my shoulder trying get her in place to hook up her collar.

We have been checking on our heifers who have been going through the parlor, albeit not getting milked. Stripe, the heifer who didn't want to come into the barn, settled right down once she was inside and except for a couple times trying to get her to her stall, she actually did better than the others. Last night we decided she might not make until her due date February 9th. We put a grate behind her just in case. This morning we were greeted with a tiny heifer calf she had delivered some time before we got in there. She accepted it once we got the slippery little girl over to her. The poor calf just wanted her mommy but got between Stripe and George Foreman. George kept kicking her. (Farmer growls audibly at George.) Once she was cleaned up and Stripe was in the parlor getting milked (without a single kick or complaint either) we moved the calf to her own stall and fed her. She has some appetite!

Meet Tessa! I don't know why I named her that; I just took one at her and the name popped into my head.

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.