Rosie's Young Bull Calf

Rosie's little bull calf is three days old now.  He was born on 9/11.  It will be easy to remember his birthday.  We've separated Rosie and her calf in the "bull pen" away from the rest of the herd.  Chuck, the bull, was head-butting him and we figured it best to get Rosie and the calf away from him.  In fact, we've made an appointment to have the bull processed in October.  Our inventory of beef in the freezer is down to only a few soup rounds.  We'll work with the bull to try to get him into the trailer between now and then.  That is going to be quite a task.  He is not friendly and can get aggressive.  I think I'm more hard-headed than he is, though.  I'll find a way to get him in the trailer.  Beef.  It's what's for supper!

Back to the calf.  The little guy is very healthy.  He drank Rosie's colostrum and is nursing on all four quarters throughout the day.  In the evenings, I bring them into the barn and feed Rosie some dairy ration and alfalfa.  While she's eating, I milk her out.  There is still some colostrum in her milk.  It is a dark yellow color.  Pretty soon that will be gone and it will just be pure milk.  We will do what we always do - we leave the cow and the calf together all day and then separate them in the early evening.  The next morning all the milk will be ours.  Then we will put the cow and the calf together and he'll get all the day time milk.  We share with each other.

So, while I milk Rosie out, I also check out her torn teat.  We have posted about her stepping on her front teat and tearing it.  It is healing and she let's us milk her, but the cut is still open.  In fact, it bled on me a little bit today.  Each day we put iodine on her teat to help keep infection out, but truthfully, I think the calf keeps things clean as much as he's nursing.  Yesterday afternoon, we couldn't find the calf.  We started to get a little concerned, but Rosie had him hidden in the grass.  He was hiding.  I picked him up and threw him over my shoulders, carrying him behind by neck holding two legs with my left hand and two with my right.  He's already getting heavy.  Thankfully, he didn't pee on me.

I got him back to the barn and Rosie moo'd at her baby.  In learning about cows, we read that cows will tend to step on their teats if their hooves get to long.  Her hooves aren't that long, but I figured I would give her a pedicure.  Too keep her from kicking me, I used a device that I blogged about in our Kow Kant Kick Post.  I positioned that over her back and got some tin snips and was able to trim her back hooves today.  I'll try to do a better job tomorrow.

Rosie's milk hasn't fully come in yet, but after milking her out in the evening for the last two days, the calf is getting most of the milk .  The little bit of milk/colostrum mix that we did get was fed to the chickens.  Do they ever love to drink fresh milk! Pretty soon, we'll be drinking fresh milk again, too!