Farewell to Amy

Amy is one of our registered Jersey cows that was born in November 2013.  She has a seven month old bull calf named Chuck that we talked about yesterday.  Amy has a really nice disposition, is honey-colored and is just an all-around good girl.  We have become attached to her.  She has a habit of pinning her ears back and we joke about that making her aerodynamic and able to run faster.  Here’s the problem, though.  Our little pasture is only 3 acres and is too small for the growing herd of dairy cows.  This means that we have to make the sometimes hard decision to sell cows and calves. 

Here are all of our Jersey girls lounging in the shade.  Starting from left to right, there’s Rosie, Amy (sitting down with her ears pinned back), Luna, Daisy, and Clarabelle (standing in front of Daisy).

Made in the shade

Sunday night Tricia sat down with me and we composed an ad that we placed in a Louisiana Agriculture Buy, Sell, Trade Facebook page.  We added six pictures and described her in pretty good detail along with our desired asking price.  We proof-read it and hit submit.  Saturday morning early on July 4th, we received a response from someone in a neighboring parish that was interested in purchasing Amy.  We dickered briefly on pricing and quickly settled on a sum that was beneficial to both parties.  The purchasers asked if they could pick her up at 2:30 pm that day.  Sure, we said, but that meant we had some work to do.  Things moved more quickly than we had imagined.

First, we had to go get her out in the pasture.  Amy has a penchant for going out in the heat and eating grass when all the rest of the cows are chewing their cud in the shade.  The heat doesn’t appear to bother her like the other girls.  I ran out to the pasture as she was on her way out to eat.

Amy on the Moooove

She looked at me as if to say, “What’s up?”  I petted her and killed a big old horsefly that was on her belly.  It was full of blood.  Those things are such a nuisance.

Amy

The purchasers asked us if we could go ahead and let Chuck nurse on her so they wouldn’t be rushed to milk her that day.  They have a beef cattle operation and are in need of a nurse cow for some calves and wanted time to introduce the calves to her.  They were interested in the timing of her cycle as they want to breed her.  Tricia keeps the cows’ cycle dates on a calendar and Amy will be coming in heat again on July 10^th.  That’s another reason they wanted to come get her quickly.

I led Amy back to the new bull pasture where Chuck now resides and let her stand in the shade and call Chuck over.

The wait by the gate

We opened the gate to the chute and Ol’ Chuck rushed into the corral, brushing by us, clambering for his Momma’s milk.   Now Chuck is 7 months old and really should have been weaned by now, but we weren’t ready to have to milk 3 cows twice a day, so we had not weaned him yet.  As you can see Chuck is almost as big as Amy.  That big galoot.

Chuck's Last Supper

Chuck drank his milk greedily, unaware that this was his last taste of Amy’s milk.  I hope he enjoyed it!

Got Milk?

We talked to Amy, telling her what a good girl she’s been.  It wasn’t long before the purchasers drove up in their truck and trailer.  We gave them detailed information about her tendencies and care.  Then we walked her to the trailer and loaded her up.  Tricia patted her on the rump.

Farewell Amy!

We are not animal rights activists.  In fact, we eat many of our animals.  However, every day we pray that we would be good stewards/husbands of our animals and we like to think that if you are going to be a Jersey Cow, Our Maker’s Acres Family Farm is the place to be!  In talking to the buyers, I think they’ll provide a good home to Amy.  We certainly hope so.  It’s always hard to tell ‘em goodbye, though, especially when they look at you with those big liquid eyes that seem to be saying, “What is happening?”

Adios Amy!

I’ll tell you who else is wondering, “What is happening?”  That would be Chuck!  He is experiencing withdrawal symptoms from his “cold-turkey” weaning.  He moo’d all yesterday and night for his Momma and her milk.  He moo’d loudly and repeatedly.  I’m sure the neighbors aren’t thrilled with us…  

Farewell, Amy Lou.  We'll miss you.

2016 Southwest District Livestock Show

This past weekend it was time for the Southwest District Livestock Show and Rodeo in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  It is held at the Burton Complex and is an opportunity for young people in 4-H and FFA to show their livestock.  We brought the animals to the barn Friday morning at 8 am.  There were Dairy cows, beef cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and rabbits in the arenas.  We quickly found our group and set up under our banner - Jeff Davis Parish Dairy Exhibit.

Our Parish Dairy Exhibit

We brought Clarabelle, the seven month old Jersey heifer and Amy, who gave birth to Chuck, our little Jersey bull.  We brought Chuck, too.  There is not a competition to show Jersey bulls.  We brought him so that Amy wouldn't be mooing all day and night looking for her calf and for a secondary purpose that we'll tell you about in a minute.  Now, because you want your dairy cow's bag to be in "full bloom," you don't milk them out for about a day in advance of the show.  They will be so full of milk that milk will be dripping from their teats.  It is probably quite uncomfortable for the cow as she wants to be milked.  Chuck wants the milk, too.  For that purpose we put down fresh wood shavings and placed Clarabelle between Chuck and Amy so that Chuck wouldn't steal Amy's milk before the show.

From left to right: Chuck, Clarabelle, and Amy

Benjamin filled the hay socks with hay and the cows ate hay and got acclimated to their new surroundings.  Cows mooing and pigs squealing in the background isn't the most peaceful sound, but the cows are able to tune that all out and sit down and nap for a bit.  Then it is time to take the animals to the washing stalls and gave the cows a good bath, scrubbing them up so that they are squeaky clean, even cleaning the ear wax out of their ears.

Taking a rest after bath time

But it is not all hard work.  The exhibitors, enjoying an excused absence from school, enjoy themselves in any number of creative ways, like pushing a cart full of cow poop and hay.  There's plenty of good, clean fun that happens at a livestock show.  You have to keep your area clean, so each time your animal poops, you have to pick up the manure with a pitch fork and fill up the poop bin.  If you didn't, all your washing would be for naught as your animal would lay in their cow patty. Cows aren't real big on cleanliness.

Pushing the poop wagon

A few members of the Jefferson Davis Dairy Show Team - all smiles

Sittin' on the fence

Saturday morning the show started promptly at 8 am with Showmanship first.  For showmanship, the competition is really not about the animal - it is about the showman.  It is about how well the exhibitor shows the animal.  Points are awarded for your ability to set up your animal quickly, your focus and attention on the judge, your proficiency in answering questions that the judge asks you about your animal, and generally how well you handle your animal - even if they are acting up.

In the show ring

Sometimes even mommas get involved, holding animals between shows and keeping a bucket full of rags to 'touch up' the cows prior to their turn in the ring.

Clarabelle & Tricia

Once Showmanship is over, then it is time for the regular show.  The cows are broken up into breed classifications that are separated by the age of the animal.  In the photo below, Benjamin is showing Clarabelle in the 7 month old Jersey heifer division.  He has her set up nicely, with her legs properly placed and her head held high.

Clarabelle set up for the judge 

Under the shining lights of the Burton Coliseum, Benjamin and Clarabelle really shined, winning a bunch of nice rosette ribbons.

Benjamin & Clarabelle

Here is a shot of Benjamin and I with Clarabelle.  She is showing off her Reserve Champion Jersey Heifer Louisiana bred ribbon.

Once Benjamin was finished showing, we walked Amy & Clarabelle back to the barn where Chuck was waiting.  That little dude was hungry and finally, since the show was over, he could drink Amy's milk.  Chuck drank and drank and drank until Amy was drained.

Emptying Amy

Chuck had a belly full of milk and he quickly sat down and began napping.  We laughed at him as he dozed off, his head sinking and sinking and sinking into the wood shavings.  

Amy, Benjamin, and Chuck

Since they want people to walk through the livestock exhibits prior to the rodeo, even though the show was over by noon, they wouldn't release us until about 8:20 pm.  We had an entire day to kill. Benjamin rested on and along with his animals to pass the time.  We also talked to parents and kids walking through the barn, explaining and showing them how to milk a cow.  Many folks aren't familiar with farm animals and they had the opportunity to pet the cows and learn about them. Believe it or not, some kids didn't know that milk comes from a cow.

We also visited with other exhibitors.  Our Jeff Davis show team is a close-knit group and we ate brisket sandwiches, rice & gravy and a bunch of snacks while we talked and laughed and enjoyed each others' company.

Catching a quick nap

We got home at about 10pm Saturday night.  It was a long day.  We got the cows unloaded from the trailer and back in the pasture.  They were glad to be home.  So were we!  Benjamin had a nice haul of ribbons of which he's proud of.  They'll decorate the wall of his room.

Benjamin's Ribbons

This weekend we'll take Clarabelle to Gonzales, Louisiana, where the State Livestock Show is held. Benjamin is looking forward to going to the State Show to show his calf and have fun with his friends.

A Rural Barbershop

The Jeff Davis Parish Livestock Show takes place this week.  Benjamin will be bringing Amy, our youngest Jersey cow who just calved in December.  We'll need to also bring her little bull, Chuck, even though you don't show dairy bulls.  Chuck will be needed at the Show Barn for two reasons. First, if he's not there, Amy will bellow non-stop and be a source of annoyance to anyone remotely nearby.  Second, he'll nurse on Amy as soon as the show is over, emptying her bag.

When the livestock shows come around, it involves some preparation.  The most time-consuming of which is giving the animals a haircut.  We're in the middle of winter and the animals have put on a nice winter coat and, sadly, that must be removed for the livestock show.  Fortunately, we have some livestock clippers that take care of that.  Saturday afternoon, we got busy.  While Tricia held Amy tight, I gave her a good clipping.  Long rolls of hair rolled off in big swaths.  The noise always frightens the animal, especially once you start clipping around their heads.

I'd like a little off the top, please.

It is unfortunate, because the animals have grown nice coats to keep them warm and now it must come off.  All the shaggy hair comes off and they are shaved smooth and clean.

The first pass of the clipper cut

There are a lot of obstacles to shave around on a cow, so this work is slow and tedious.  I stop several times and blow the hair off of the clippers (and off of me) with an air compressor that I've loaded on a wagon and brought near the pasture. We were mostly finished with Amy when we began to hear thunder rumbling and lightening flashing.  Then big raindrops began falling.  We let Amy run back to the hay bale, and we took shelter inside - postponing completion of the job until Sunday.

Removing the winter coat

The weather on Sunday was picture-perfect, with bluebird skies and brilliant sunlight.  As soon as church ended, we quickly ate a bowl of gumbo and ran out to the pasture to pick up where we left off the day before.  I did some fine tuning, cleaning up some of the areas I missed on Amy and worked my way to her head. The head is the tricky part.  We remove the halter and put nose pliers into her nose so that she becomes compliant as we shave around her ears, eyes and nose.  I'd be compliant too if someone put nose pliers on me!  In no time flat we finished up with Amy's haircut.  Benjamin began to walk her around, practicing how he'd show her in the ring, ensuring that she would set up properly.

Showing off that new haircut

Here is Amy modeling her new haircut, showing her sleet, aerodynamic lines!

But we aren't only bringing Amy and Chuck to the show.  We're bringing Clarabelle, too.  Clarabelle is Rosie's little heifer.  She is about 7 months old and has the most gentle and kind disposition out of all of our animals.  She wasn't always like that. In fact, she was the most difficult of all of our animals to halter break.  Now she is so tame and loving.  She also has a very thick winter coat.  It is a reddish-tint, like Rosie's.  We tied her to a solid post and began working.

Time for Clarabelles' haircut

She's smaller, so her haircut went a little quicker, although we played around a bit. Benjamin thought it would be a good idea if we shaved a mane like a horse on her neck.  It looked pretty funny.

The Mane Attraction

Instead of looking like a horse's mane, though, it looked more like a mohawk.

Clarabelle's first haircut

We figured that maybe the mohawk needed to come off.  By about 3 p.m. we finished up and began packing up the clippers.  I blew all the little hairs out of the clipper assembly and cleaned the clippers before packing it away.  After the shows, we'll bring the clipper blades to get re-sharpened.

All done

The Parish livestock show in Jennings is on Wednesday, January 20th, followed by the Southwest District livestock show in Lake Charles on Saturday, February 6th, and the State Livestock show in Gonzales on Monday, February 15th.  The livestock shows are always a very busy time of year.  This time will be even more so as we have 3 cows in milk.  It can be a little overwhelming if you think about it.  That's why I like to break it down into tasks and the haircutting task is done!   

Singing to Amy (How We Got Amy To Let Down Her Milk)

If you follow our blog, you'll know that Amy just had her first calf.  He's a little bull calf that we named "Chuck."  Chuck is a healthy little fellow and is doing just fine. Right now we leave Momma and baby together all day.  Soon we'll separate them in the evening and begin milking Amy in the morning. Right now, Chuck can't empty out all of Amy's milk, so I'm milking Amy out in the evening so Amy doesn't get mastitis.

30 minutes after 'Chuck' was born

Here is Chuck one day after being born.  Once he dried off, he's more of a brown color than a reddish-brown.  He has lots of personality.

Chuck at one day old

We have two stalls in the barn.  Each evening at about 5 pm, we bring the cows in the barn for feeding and we separate the calves from the Momma cows.  Clarabelle, Rosie's heifer, goes in the big stall for the evening:

And Luna, Daisy's heifer, goes into the little stall that we have the goat milking stanchion in.  If you look closely, you can still see the green ink on one of Luna's ears from when we tattooed her ears.  It will rub off soon.  You can also see one of the scabs on her head from where we recently de-horned her.  We've got to do the same with Chuck this weekend.

"Green-eared Luna!"

Speaking of Chuck, here he is.  We don't have another stall for him in the barn. We'll have to remedy that for when we start separating him, but that is on my project list.  Anyway, that was a long, rambling introduction to the reason for the post - milking Amy, and how we get her to drop her milk.

Poor Chuck - stranded outside (Rosie's glowing eyes in the background)

The first thing we do in the evening is to bring Amy into the barn, leaving Chuck outside.  This makes her a little nervous, but she's okay with it for the most part. Chuck will come up to the barn gate and look in and then he'll dash off, tail high in the air - funny to watch him run.

When Amy's in the barn, we clean her up and get ready to milk.  Initially, we hobbled one of her legs and she milked perfectly fine, but then began to kick. Fortunately, we have a device called Kow Kan't Kick.  We posted about it in this previous post.  You can click on that hyperlink to read details about the nifty contraption.  

Kow Kan't Kick in place

With the device in place, her udder cleaned up, and lubricant put on her teats, we're ready to start milking.  The Kow Kan't Kick tool makes it next to impossible for her to lift her leg.  Properly installed you don't have to worry about her kicking at all.

Ready to Go!

But there's one more problem.  As I start milking, the process of separating her from her baby along with the stress of clamping the device on her back, causes her to be filled with anxiety.  Cows like things to be serene, slow, and steady.  All the excitement has caused Amy to hold back her milk.  I discover that there's very little milk coming out.  Cows can be very cunning and hold back their milk for their babies.  You can do several things to get her to drop her milk.  First, you can clean her udder with warm water.  This will relax her.  Then, you can imitate the calf and bump her bag.  This bumping action is what the calf instinctively does with its head to cause the milk to drop.

Finally though, I found the thing that worked.  Alone in the barn, I began singing to Amy.  I picked the first song that came to mind, a country song by Tim McGraw called, "Just To See You Smile." As I belted out the chorus:

Just to see you smile

I'd do anything that you wanted me to

When all is said and done

I'd never count the cost

It's worth all that's lost

Just to see you smile

And then, an amazing thing started to happen - Amy's milk started dropping!  The more I sang, the more the milk dropped, filling her udder.

Amy let down her milk!

As I sang to a cow in the barn at 7pm at night, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at what someone would think if they came walking by.  You can't argue with success, though.  Singing to Amy made her milk drop, but I'm not sure if it made her smile...

Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad (Our Newest Arrival in the Pasture!)

Nope, I'm not talking about the popular Meatloaf song by this name (Two out of Three Ain't Bad) released in 1977.  I'm talking about the newest addition to our little animal family on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm. This year our Jersey cows have given us the following:

• Rosie gave us a little heifer we named Clarabelle, 
• Daisy gave us a little heifer named Luna, and now...
• Amy gave us a little BULL named Chuck.  (well, maybe this post is about Meatloaf after all!)

We always hope for heifers and this year we got two out of three - and that ain't bad. I was planting some turnips in the last three rows of our garden.  The turnip greens and turnip roots mature in about 50 days and they will be fed to the cows during the coldest part of our winter here in south Louisiana. Anyway, while I was planting, I kept hearing the calves (Clarabelle & Luna) mooing.  Finally, I looked up to see what all the racket was.  I saw something beside Amy way out in the pasture. The curious heifers were mooing to welcome the newest arrival.

Three's company

Amy must have just delivered the calf since it was wet and she had just commenced 'cleaning the calf up by licking.'  Steam was rising off of the calf's little body.

Baby's first bath

Well, let's check and see what the sex is - boy or girl?  I lifted the leg (hoping for a heifer) and observed male body parts. Oh well, two out of three ain't bad.  Notice how the hooves are white. They quickly turn black and harden up.

It's a...  BOY.

It is always amazing to us the way that motherly instincts kick in.  This is Amy's first calf and she instinctively knows what to do without any guidance or help from her momma or other cows.  She protectively watched every move I made as she licked her little boy down.

Gimme a kiss, momma

Amy's bag was swollen and filled with colostrum.  In fact, you can see the thick, yellow, antibody and nutrient-filled first milk dripping from her teats.

Colostrum leaking

After a bit, Daisy arrived to see the new arrival along with her baby, Luna.  There was plenty of excitement.  I watched Luna and Clarabelle both lift their tails skyward and run around the pasture, unable to contain their joy.  Daisy and Rosie? Well this wasn't their first rodeo.  They were markedly more sedate about the whole thing.

Visiting the baby

For such a scrawny little thing, the little bull had lots of energy.  He wasn't 10 minutes on the ground before he began clumsily trying to stand on wobbly legs. He'd make progress and then fall.  He was persistent though.

Baby it's cold outside...

After only 30 minutes had passed, the little bull was on his feet.  That sets a record for us easily. Most of our other calves have been very slow to get on their feet and even slower to nurse.  This little fella began immediately to search for his supper - on the WRONG END like they always do!

Hey buddy, the other side!

He finally smelled supper, I presume, and began trying to latch on.  He was unsuccessful, though, and as his head hit the udder, it made the colostrum shoot out of Amy's teats in high-pressure streams. Amy was uninterested in her little boy's attempts as she ate some Dairy ration and alfalfa pellets that Tricia gave her.

Both animals trying to enjoy a meal

Once Amy was finished with her supper, she become a more willing participant in helping the newborn learn to suckle.  She gently nudged him backward with her head, getting him in the right position, mooing soft encouragement to her baby.

Back up a bit, fella!

In no time flat, the little guy hit pay dirt, latching on and drinking the sustenance that will give him a great head start - nutrient and antibody-laden colostrum - Liquid Gold! 

He found the milk spigot!!

So with 3 1/2 weeks left to go in 2015, all our cows had successful deliveries - 2 heifers and 1 bull. We think we're going to name him "Chuck" or "Sir Loin," we're not sure yet  We'll keep you posted on how he's growing and, most importantly, if Amy is going to be a good milker.  She's definitely very gentle and a good momma to her first calf.  Obviously, she's never been milked before, so we're anxious to see how that goes.  We'll find out tonight!