Quirky Cows and Other Tails

Cows may seem like benign farm animals and 95% of the time, they are.  It doesn't take much to make a contented cow-a nice fresh grassy patch to graze, a cool drink of water now and then, and a cozy little spot to plunk down on for a quick snooze.

The thing is cows have quirks too. They can be extremely curious. You know that thing that kills the cat? A cow can be just that bad. Go stand out in a pasture of cows and within five minutes, they'll all be gathered round like you are the town crier and have a juicy bit of bovine gossip to share. I've seen them chase any number of birds (including eagles), the dogs, and any other animal that ventures into their paddock simply because they want a closer look.  They also like the game Follow The Leader. I'm serious. Get one cow moving in any direction and before long the herd is at her heels. She stops, they stop. She turns, they turn. (This can lead to trouble if the lead cow turns out a gate that accidentally got left open...)

And then you get the extra quirky cows. We have one who thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. It doesn't matter if that other side is the paddock she just vacated or if it's a weed filled ditch. It must be better because it's on the other side. So she goes down on her knees and with her backside hoisted high in the air inches under the wire just far enough to snag that juicy morsel of grass without getting a hefty zap from the electric fence. Smart cow or dumb cow I can't decide.

L has a picture of another bovine who decided to 'dress up' a little. She was inspecting a tire left out in the field, decided it was as good a spot as any to scratch that itch way back on her heck and bloop! the tire slid over her head and she was fashionably at-tired (pardon the pun) for milking with a rubber necklace. (And I have it on good authority that it was easier said than done to remove said adornment. The cow was a little attached to her accessory and didn't want to give it up but she was finally convinced that she didn't need to be prettied up for milking.)

We have another cow who hurdled fences with the ease of an Olympic track star simply because she decided it was more fun to see the humans chasing after her than it was to go into the parlor for milking. Twenty minutes, three fences, two gates, and several laps (both on foot and on an ATV) around the pasture, she decided to take pity on the huffing and puffing chore help and meekly walked into the parlor. Every other year or so, she has to test her jumping ability and see if she can still clear that cattle gate or electric fence though she's stopped leading us on a merry chase.

And then you get the absolutely nutso cows. I mean out-right loony. And not just during full moons...

Last summer, the Craziest Cow in the Herd award was shared by two. The first was a young heifer who decided that even though she was a mom herself, she was going back to her baby days. We kept catching her suckling on another cow and no amount of persuasion (or dissuasion) would make her stop. The second was the cow she was nursing from. That one was due to calve in a few months and somehow decided this overgrown baby was hers. We ended up shipping the younger one because she couldn't quit and we sorta wanted the milk she was guzzling in our bulk tank, not hers. So off she went.

This year, another 'Momma' cow is a shoo-in for the 'Crazy Cow' award. We have a full-grown cow who suddenly decided the also full grown breeding bull was her baby. One day, she ignored him and went about her daily business. The next, she turned into a jealous mother. She spends her day mooing gently in his ear, keeping him safely corralled at her side so he can't hurt himself, and tends to his every need. She doesn't think he's old enough to leave her side for even five minutes which interferes quite a bit with his whole purpose for being in the herd. She's jumped fences, tried to sneak through a wood barricade, and attempted to wiggle under some metal pipes all in an effort to get back to her 'little' boy. We'll see if she settles down once bully boy is hauled away for a few months as we're at the end of our Fall breeding season.

And it's all just another day on the farm...

Bye Bye Bossy

Because I grew up in town, even though I now live in the country, I still tend to look at animals as pets rather than just animals. I'm getting better and certain aspects of farm life no longer phase me. It's just that I get this little pang for awhile when we send a cow to the sale barn.

We sent one just this morning. She was one of the older cows in the herd, had developed a slight limp, had a high SCC number, wasn't bred, and wasn't producing as much milk as she used to. Still, for some reason, I've become attached to that particular cow.

Perhaps I was attached because she was one of the first ones I could always pick out when I first started milking. She just stood out in my mind. Maybe it was her placid temperament. (In other words, she went into the parlor first without complaint, had a nice big bag with large straight teats, and didn't kick at you or the milker.) It could just be that I liked that cow for no reason at all. For whatever reason, it was still bittersweet to say goodbye.

From Our Farm: Part 2

This is a milker. When the cows come into the parlor, we wash their udders with an iodine-based solution to clean off anything that might be on the teats. Then we put the milker on. The milkers are designed to mimic (as closely as a machine can) the action of a calf suckling in order to get the milk out of the cow.


Once the milk is in the milkers, it is pumped through a pipeline, a holding tank or 'jar', and our plate cooler (which cools the milk down) before ending up in our bulk tank. (This one is in our winter barn.) The bulk tank is essentially a very large cooler with a paddle inside. It keeps the milk between 35 and 38 degrees while the paddle stirs the milk to help keep the milk at a constant temperature.

From Our Farm: Chore Time

Twice a day, we bring our cows into the barn for milking. We have two barns-one is a stall barn with an attached parlor used in the winter and the other is just the milking parlor on our 90-acre irrigated summer pasture.


This is our winter parlor. This parlor is a Double 7, meaning we can milk seven cows on each side with a milker for each. We bring the cows in from the holding pen through the two doors on the right. The cows face away from the center aisle or 'pit'. The chore people stand in the pit and put the milkers on between the cow's legs. Once done milking, the cows are sent out the far door and back out into the barn where they are fed hay bales and TMR (a mixture of grain, minerals, and corn silage) in the feed lane. They also have access to the winter pasture.


This is our summer parlor. We bring the cows in through the system of gates you see at the far end of the parlor. As you can see, this is a much bigger parlor. It is a Swing 14, meaning we can put 14 cows in on each side but swing the milkers from side to side as the cows finish milking. The exit doors are not pictured. The cows go out of the parlor and walk back to their pasture until the next milking. We feed the TMR out in the pasture.

From Our Farm: A Calf is Born

For those of you who have never been on a dairy farm, here is a peek into our farming life.


Step 1-A calf is born. Our calves are bottle-fed whole milk for 8+ weeks before being weaned. Once weaned, we will keep the calves on the farm until they are 3-4 months old before sending them to our custom calf raiser. They will stay there until they are old enough to be bred.


Step 2-The calf grows up. We bring the next batch of heifers (cows that have not had their first calf yet) back to the farm when they are about a year old to be bred by our breeding bull. After being bred and having a calf, we bring the cow into the milking herd.


Step 3-In order to produce milk, a cow has to 1. have a calf and 2. eat, eat, eat. We feed hay, corn silage, and a mixture of grains and minerals during the winter months. This is taken in the feed lane at our winter barn.


Step 3(cont.)-From mid-May to mid-October, our cows are on our summer pasture. We move their paddocks twice a day to allow for fresh grazing and feed corn silage and a grain/mineral mix. There is nothing lovelier to me than seeing the cows grazing contentedly on all that lush green grass.

Brrr...It's Cold Out There!

We got down to -31 degrees last night. That's cold. I was pretty happy to be able to sleep in this morning as it was -18 (I think) when Lanny left for morning chores. I don't milk if the temp is -20 and I guess he figured it was close enough. Chores this evening will be chilly but they shouldn't be too bad. It's those more extreme negative temps that cause problems. At -15 degrees, everything starts freezing in the parlor. Hoses freeze, hands and feet get chilled, boots get slippery, and anything wet that hits the floor freezes within a short amount of time (not instantaneously but it sometimes seems that way...)It makes for some treacherous walking if one isn't careful about spreading ashes or sawdust on the icy patches. Still the cows prefer to be outdoors rather than in the barn. They come in with frosty 'beards' on their chins, snot-sicles the size of baby carrots, and frozen manure blobs hanging from tails but still they would prefer to be out on the manure pack. I'll stay indoors and leave the frozen noses to the cows.

Calving Time

Well, it's that time of year again...The cows are starting the Fall Freshening Season. So far, we've had eight heifer calves, seven bull calves, and one calf that didn't survive birth. We are about par for the course at this time of year. Calving season is always a hectic time of year and, while it's nice to see those cute calves, I do breathe a big sigh of relief when the season is over. (I also breathe a very big sigh of relief when the calves are all weaned and hauled to the calf barn.) Each season bring about the miracle of birth but it also brings about the need for ALOT of patience. No matter how many calves you have at one time, you will be guaranteed to have at least one that can escape any kind of pen you have it in, a few that get sick, a few that are too stubborn to learn how to drink properly from a bottle, and a fewer than you would like that do everything right. So far I've had a calf fall down a fox hole while trying to run to Momma out in the pasture, two calves who could wiggle out of the 12 inch opening in their hutches, and, currently, a stubborn bull calf who protested his being taken from Mom by refusing to drink his bottle. And this doesn't include the cows...We have several cows who regularly wander up to the barn to bellow for their babies who, being penned up, can't respond with anything other than a pitiful little bleat. We also discovered we have some pretty messed up breeding records because we have cows giving birth two to three months before they are scheduled to do so and, in a few cases, without us knowing they were even pregnant! It's frustrating, amazing, and funny all at once. Well, I guess that's just life on the farm.

Cows And Kids

Cows are like kids. They drool, are capable of making a much larger mess than you thought possible, holler when they are hungry, do what they want to do rather than what you would like them to do, and eat their own snot.

Calf Chores

The following excerpt is from my future, probably-will-never-actually-be-written guide to farm life. It will be found in the chapter The Care and Feeding of Calves.

Put bottle into bottle feeder. Climb into pen and, using all available upper body strength, wrestle calf over to feeder. Stick fingers into calf's mouth in an attempt to guide it to the bottle's nipple. Calf isn't fooled and shakes head several times, resulting in skinned knuckles from calf's overly sharp teeth. Lose grip on calf due to sore fingers. Chase calf around pen a few times. Sigh in angry frustration before wrestling calf over to the feeder a few more times. Each time, the calf is too slippery and gets away. Try to keep voice down when calf stomps on tender toes encased in non-steel toed barn boots. Play Ring-Around-The-Rosey with calf before getting a lucky grab on it's neck. Get head-butted in numerous places by starvingly hungry calf looking for bottle. Yelp in pain and lose grip on calf yet again. Catch calf in far corner before wrestling calf over to the bottle one last time. Get calf to actually start drinking before it backs up too much and nipple slips out of mouth. Mentally contemplate your choices as calf runs circles around your legs, trying to find the bottle. Throw hands up in air, give up in angry frustration and stomp back to milkhouse while mentally haranguing L414 for giving birth to such a 'high spirited' animal before finding Lanny to feed that darn, pushy, wish-I-could-use-a-stronger-word calf.....