Ringing the Dinner Bell

We don't really have a bell that we ring when it is time for supper.  We'll normally just holler, "C'mon, Daisy! C'mon Rosie!  Come eat!"  In a perfect world they would come a runnin'.  When there is no grass in the pasture in winter time, that's exactly what they do.  Better yet, they'll be waiting for us when we come outside because they are hungry.

Right now, the days have been slightly cooler because of the overcast skies and rain and the grass is green and high as a chicken's head in spots.  The cows have their heads down eating when we come out and they barely notice our walk to the barn. We'll holler, bang on the feed buckets, clap our hands - all in an effort to call them in to eat and to be milked.

Those hard-headed girls willfully ignore us and go right on eating.  I'll slog through the mud and walk way out into the pasture to get them.  Inevitably, when I get out there, they'll lift their heads up, look at me with this expressionless face and begin walking to the barn.  It is like a game to them to see if they can make me walk out there and get them.  Rosie is by far the worst, too.

Daisy, being the matriarch and lead cow, takes the lead position as she saunters toward the barn. I've learned that I need to stay behind Rosie because she gets easily distracted and will stop and begin to eat grass again.  Or she'll decide that now is a good time to poop or pee or do both.  It is a long ordeal sometimes to get them into the barn.  I'll confess that sometimes I would like to pop Rosie with a 'hot shot' to give her a little pep in her step.

In the photo below, Tricia has just fed the chickens a bucket full of fermented rice. It stinks so very bad, but the chickens love it.  The cows will eat it, too, and find that it is great fun to walk right through the flock of chickens eating the sprouted grain and scattering the hens in a loud cacophony of clucks and feathers flying.  At any given time we have at least one or two hens limping due to their collision with the feet of an animal that is 300 times their weight.

At long last, we get them in the barn, cleaned up and milked.  As much as a rush that we were in to get them into the barn, we're trying to get them out of the barn. For some reason, the relief of being milked coupled with a satisfying meal, goes to work on their digestive system and we'll see their tails rising.

They aren't particular or shy about it either.  Needless to say, they will flat out fill the barn with poop and pee if we don't usher them out with the quickness as soon as we're finished milking, so they can take care of business outside.  In the event of a mess inside the barn, we have a poop scooper that we'll scoop the poop up with and fill up a bucket.  When the bucket is full, I'll toss the contents over the fence onto the compost pile.

I am noticing a change in the quality of the grass, with more production of the stems and seed heads and less production of the foliage of the grass.  That is not as appetizing to the cows and they'll pick around trying to find tasty grass underneath the taller grass gone to seed.  We'll have to start supplementing with hay at some point in the next month or two.  At least that will mean that we won't have to walk out to get them at feeding/milking time.  They'll have to wait on us versus us waiting on them!