Farewell to Daisy

So this post is hard to write...

I can remember being a little boy showing sheep in 4-H.  They were "market lambs."  I wasn't smart enough to figure out what that meant until the day of the sale.  I could hear the auctioneer arriving at a price for someone's animal and then asking, "Where do you want this animal to go?"  The answer I heard burned into my brain: "Manuel's Slaughterhouse."  The truth of what a market lamb was hit me like a ton of bricks.

I ran and jumped in the stall with "Fluff" and "Snowball" and hugged them and cried.  And cried.  And cried.  These were my friends.  I walked them every day.  They followed me around.  My dad was about to call off the sale, when logic finally settled in on me.  They were wethers.  This means they were castrated at a young age.  They are no good for breeding and only good for eating.  It was hard to do, but I relented.  This is life.  It is hard, but it is truly a blessing to be at the top of the food chain.

Fast forward forty-something years later, and I'm in the same situation.  Daisy was the calf that came alongside "Momma Cow," our first Jersey milk cow.  Daisy grew up and became a great show cow and milker, providing milk for our family for years and years and provided us many calves.  She is the matriarch of our little herd and quite bossy.

She's eleven years old and as she's aged, she's run into a problem.  For two years we've tried to have her bred, but she won't get pregnant.  Bulls breed her, but she is never able to get pregnant.  Try as we might, we cannot get a positive test.  The veterinarian has looked at her and found nothing wrong, but she is unable to get pregnant.  On our 3 acre pasture, we just don't have room or money to just "put her out to pasture" and let her live out her days without providing calves or milk.  The sad day came when we realized that Daisy couldn't stay with us anymore.  Saturday we loaded her into the cattle trailer...

And we took her away.  That's all I can say.  We both told Daisy we were so sorry.  She was a good cow and was with our family for 11 years.  We took very good care of her and provided her a good home and peaceful surroundings.  Our Maker's Acres Family Farm was like "cow heaven" to her, I'm sure.

As Tricia walked away with Daisy's halter in her hand and we drove away in the truck, pulling an empty cattle trailer, the same pain from forty-something years ago gripped my heart.  I feel like a big baby, but it is an emotional thing to me.

Farewell Daisy.  We will miss you.

Daisy Comes Home

Daisy is the matriarch of our current Jersey herd.  Back in 2007, she came to us as a baby calf on the side of her mother, Momma Cow.  Momma Cow passed away years back, but Daisy remains.  She's getting up in years a bit and has been having trouble getting bred the last few times we've had her get together with a bull.

We've had her get checked out by our veterinarian, but he cannot find anything wrong with her that would be keeping her from getting pregnant when all the other cows have gotten bred.  So, we have a friend in Hathaway with a registered Jersey bull.  He agreed to let us bring Daisy down to stay for a few cycles with his bull. 

Our friend saw evidence that Daisy was bred by his bull, but this has happened before without her actually becoming pregnant.  Two days ago, blood samples were taken to check to see if Daisy is carrying a calf.  We await the results.  We picked up Daisy and brought her back to home.  She arrived in the trailer and began walking to meet up with the rest of the little herd that she hasn't seen in a couple of months.  There was lots of mooing and bellowing...

Cows go through some sort of a greeting process where they touch noses and then start walking around sniffing each other.

And then they sniff some more...

After a couple of months all the cows are back together again.

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We should hear results of the blood work to confirm pregnancy in about 10 days.  If the results come back that Daisy is open (not pregnant), we'll have to make some hard decisions.  On a three acre pasture, we can't keep cows that can't provide calves.  We'll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess.  In the meantime, we'll pray that Daisy is carrying a calf - a heifer calf!

What To Do About Daisy?

Daisy is the matriarch of our little dairy herd.  There is no question she is the boss.  Daisy came to us back in 2007 as a baby calf on the side of her momma.  Her mom was named Buttercup, but we called her momma cow.  She died and that leaves Daisy as the oldest Jersey on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

Here is the plot twist.  After having numerous calves, Daisy now is having problems getting pregnant.  She has been exposed to several bulls over the last 2 years, but for some reason, she can't get pregnant.  We've had the veterinarian come look at her and he can't find any cysts or any reason why she can't conceive.  Recently we took her down the road to a friend's home who has a Jersey bull.  Daisy came in heat, the animals bred, and we took her home.  We took a blood sample to test for pregnancy and... it came back negative.

Tricia and I are faced with a tough decision.  If she can't get pregnant, she is a taker and not a giver - just eating grass.  If she can't get pregnant, she can't produce milk.  If you are a "milk cow" and can't produce milk, you have a serious problem.  We can't keep her on the farm.  We can sell her to the sale barn or we can 'put her in the freezer.'  Although we've eaten bull calves off our herd, the thought of eating Daisy or Rosie, is not a nice thought to entertain.  However, selling her to the sale barn where she would be loaded on a big cattle trailer with dozens of other cows to be transported far away to be butchered is not pleasant either.

So...  We talked to our friend down the road with the Jersey bull and he wants to continue to try to have his bull breed her.  We brought Daisy back to his house today.

According to Tricia's calendar, Daisy should go into heat shortly.  As soon as we got her out of the trailer, she ran to the fence and the bull came near.  We put her into the pasture and the bull immediately started courting her.  Here he is rubbing on her rump with his head.

We are pretty sure that they will breed in the next few days, and we truly hope that Daisy is able to have a calf.

If Daisy only knew the pressure that she is under to have this calf!  She's on the clock.  If she can't get pregnant after a couple more attempts, we'll have to make some hard decisions.

An Update on the Cows

As I watch Daisy, Rosie, and Luna eating grass in the front yard on a gorgeous, albeit hot, afternoon, I realized that I hadn't given an update lately on what's going on with each of our four Jersey cows.  First, Daisy, the herd matriarch is getting up there in age for a milk cow.  She's eleven years old and for some reason hasn't been going in heat.  We want her to calve again and did some research on the Internet.  We gave her a vitamin A injection and brought her and Clarabelle down the road 5 miles to a friend's house who has a registered Jersey bull.

Two days later, the friend called and said that he observed his bull breeding Daisy and that we could go pick her up.  For some reason Clarabelle did not cycle and was not bred.  We left her for another 21 days for her to cycle again and we received word today that the friend's bull bred Clarabelle.  So if all goes well, we'll have two Jersey calves in late March or early April 2019!  Hopefully, Benjamin's truck will be out of the shop tomorrow afternoon and we'll go pick Clarabelle up and bring her home.  In a month or so, we'll have them palpated to ensure they are pregnant.

Now Rosie and Luna are still in milk.  We're milking Rosie mornings and evenings and Luna once a day in the evening.  We'll begin marking the date they go in heat so that we can bring them down to the friend's bull to be bred too.  Daisy didn't calve this year.  Rosie and Clarabelle both had little bulls, Junior and Astro.  They are growing and we'll likely put them in the freezer when they are big enough.  Luna had a stillborn bull calf and we almost lost her in the process, but she's recovered nicely.

Checking to See if the Cows are Bred

Tricia called our veterinarian to make a farm call.  None of the cows were sick.  In this case the farm call was to palpate the cows.  Palpation involves examining the cows' bodies by touch in this case to see if they are carrying calves.  We needed to have Dr. Fontenot palpate Daisy, Rosie, and Clarabelle.  He put on his plastic 'gloves' that go all the way up to his shoulder and poured a lubricant on them and then began his examination right there in our barn in the milking stall.

He felt around inside of the cows and could feel the fetus, sizing it up from experience and let Tricia know how old the calf was.  Since we chart the days of the month that we see the cows in standing heat, we could count backwards to determine when they were bred.  Here is the verdict:

Rose was bred on December 8th.  That means she'll calve somewhere around September 8th.

Clarabelle was bred on January 25th.  That means she'll calve somewhere around October 25th. This will be Clarabelle's first calf.

Daisy, on the other hand, is not bred.  Dr. Fontenot checked out the one ovary that he could reach and everything was normal.  He was going to do some research to see what the problem could be that is keeping her from getting pregnant.  In the meantime, we know that she'll be coming in heat again in about a week.  We will keep our eyes on her and the bull.  We know that Chuck, the bull, is "hot" and perhaps this go-around she will get pregnant.

The First Lawn Mowing of 2017

On March 4th it warmed up to 80 degrees.  Like clockwork I heard the neighbors, one by one, cranking up their lawnmowers and then weedeaters to get their lawns looking nice.  It takes a little work to get the winter grass and clover cut back.  Not to mention the leaves.  The live oaks are dropping the old growth leaves while putting on new leaves and tassels.

Pulling the lawnmowers out of the garage after the winter hibernation takes a little work.  Of course the tires must be aired up to the proper pressure level.  The changing temperatures always affects the air level in the tires.  I read that for every 10 degree Fahrenheit change in air temperature outside the tire, results in a 2% change in air pressure inside the tire, either up or down, depending on air temperature increase or decrease.

I'll clean the battery posts and connections with a wire brush after I loosen the connections to scrape away the corrosion.  I'll jump start 'Ol Betsy and run some Sea Foam fuel treatment through her until she purrs like a kitten.  Then she's ready to go.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First I "pre-mow."  I'm not going to just chop down all that white dutch clover growing in the yard without letting Daisy and Rosie eat it.  But first that takes some preparation by stringing up our solar charged portable electric fence.  During the off-season when the grass doesn't grow, I take down the cross-fencing paddocks in the pasture that I rotate the cows through.  Toward the end of the season I noticed that our old solar charger wasn't 'hot' enough.  The cows were going right through it without being shocked.

When I pulled it down, I had it shipped off to the manufacturer to see what the issue might be.  I learned, to my dismay, that it was more economical to buy a new solar fence charger than pay for the repairs needed to refurbish it.  The old fence charger had done its job over the years, but finally petered out.  I purchased a new one for a little over $154.  I sat it out in the yard and let it charge up for a while and then I strung the portable fence up, hammered in a ground rod, hooked up the wires, and went and got the cows.

Harnessing the Power of the Sun

Funny thing is, like Pavlov's salivating dogs, the sound of me unrolling the poly-wire rope on the reel, captured the cow's attention.  They remember that sound equates to fresh grass and they start lining up at the fence and mooing loudly.  One at a time I walked over, opened the gate and got the matriarch of our little herd, Daisy...

Followed closely by Rosie.  Poor Clarabelle, Luna, and Chuck have to stay in the pasture.  Daisy and Rosie are still in milk and we give them the best grass so that they'll produce the best milk for us.  If you notice both above and below, they both made a beeline for their favorite item on the salad bar - white dutch clover.  I left them in the side yard for about three hours and they manicured it nicely. Meanwhile, if you look below to the right of the live oak, you can see the John Deere lawn tractor warming up, ready for duty.

With the "pre-mowing" done, I put the cows back in the pasture, roll the poly-rope back on the reel, pull up the temporary step-in posts and get on the John Deere lawn tractor.  Nothing runs like a Deere - or our Jersey cows to white dutch clover.

Tale of the Tape

During the months of December and January, we will be exposing all of our Jersey cows to our Jersey bull so that they all calve within a month of each other. Obviously, since both Daisy and Rosie have been bred numerous times, as soon as we see them come into heat, we've put them into the bullpen with Chuck, the Jersey bull.

The reason we don't just open the gates to the bullpen and let the cows and bull intermingle for the next two months is because of Luna, our Jersey heifer.  She is too young to breed.  Therefore, we keep her cordoned off away from the bull.

Clarabelle, our Jersey heifer, raises another issue of concern.  She's young and has never been bred before.  She was born in June of 2015.  Jerseys' minimum breeding weight should be 550 pounds, but how do we determine the weight without a scale? Well, there is a tape that you put right behind the front legs and it gives a pretty accurate indication of the animal's weight.

You loop the tape around and put it together to give you the weight.  The tape has markings for Jersey, Guernsey, and Holsteins on it.

The Jersey weights are shown on the very bottom of the tape and this clearly shows that Clarabelle weighs 620 pounds, so she is well above the minimum breeding weight of 550 pounds.  Now that we have that determined, we feel much better about putting the bull with everyone except Luna.

Clarabelle weighs 620 pounds

Here is ol' Chuck.  He's happy to be with the ladies as he hasn't been in the same pasture with them for months and months.  In a really strange turn of events, he ran to Rosie, his mother, and began trying to nurse on her!  Rosie began kicking him away.  That is a good thing as he is almost the same size as her and we don't want him drinking our milk.  He continued bothering her and she continued kicking her away.  Unfortunately, during evening milking, Rosie kicked and kicked as Tricia tried to milk her.  I guess she assumed that Tricia was her bull calf, Chuck, trying to get her milk.

Hopefully we'll get all the cows except for Luna exposed to the bull to be bred.  That will give us calving dates of September - October 2017.

Making Homemade Cream Cheese

We hadn't made cream cheese in quite a while.  Azure Standard, a co-op that we order from, just started carrying Cultures for Health and Tricia decided to order a starter kit to try out the cream cheese to see if it would work for making cheesecake. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we normally buy a lot of cream cheese from the store to make cheesecake and radish dip and we normally put big dollups of our pepper jelly over a brick of cream cheese.  No sense in buying all that when you can make it yourself with Daisy and Rosie's rich milk/cream.

So here is the kit, complete with instructions and 4 culture packets.  Each packet is to be used with 1 gallon of milk.  Traditional cream cheese is made with 50% cream and 50% whole milk.  For richer cream cheese, use whole cream.  Tricia just used a gallon of whole milk from Daisy.  Her milk is the richest.  Let's do this!

Slowly heat a gallon of milk to 86 degrees.  Don't heat it fast.

Once at 86 degrees, remove from heat and pour in your starter packet.  Mix it in using an up and down motion versus stirring motion.

Cover it and let sit for 12 hours at room temperature.

After 12 hours, scoop all the curds in a colander in a bowl lined with a cotton rag and lift the rag, tying up the corners, allowing the whey to drip from the curds into a bowl placed below it.  Let drip for 12 hours.

Take it down, opening it up to reveal your cheese.

Knead some kosher salt into it.  Tricia found that in using 1 gallon of whole raw milk, it made:

• 1 3/4 pounds of cream cheese or 28 ounces, and 
• 3/4 gallon of whey

Tricia put 10 ounces of homemade cream cheese aside in a bowl as she was going to make a cream cheese icing for my birthday cake.

Here she is mixing cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar.  Once it is mixed, she stirs in chopped up pecans.

And the result is....  Perfection!

Yeah, we won't be buying cream cheese for Thanksgiving baking this year. Homemade cream cheese was, well... THE ICING ON THE CAKE!

Weaning Luna

Luna is our little heifer (Daisy's little girl) that was born on October 27, 2015.  She's 8 months old and past time to be weaned.  Tricia and I had been talking about it and finally decided to get the job done on Monday night.  Normally in the evening, we let the calves nurse and then separate them from their mommas so that we have the milk in the morning.  But on Monday night, poor Luna got no milk.  I milked Daisy while Luna stood at the gate and moo'd... loudly.  Something was wrong. This was not her normal routine.  What is going on?

Well, she was soon to find out.  We normally install what we call a weaning plate that makes it near impossible for the calves to get to their momma's udder.  We usually use a plate that you tighten down with a wing nut.  Here is a post about that style plate in this post: Weaning Clarabelle  Although we've used that weaning device numerous times, the crafty calves always figure out ways to pry it out of their nose.  Then when we go to milk the cows in the morning, we discover that the calves have robbed our milk.  (I'm sure they see it from a different perspective.)

This time with Luna we determined that we'd try a different style weaning plate.  At $2.65 it was half the price of the metal one.  It is made entirely of plastic and has pointed spines on it.

Calf Weaner

We held Luna securely and took the weaning plate out of the package.  It came with no instructions, so I figured that you twist the plate until the prongs separate and then install in her nose.  We'll give it a try.  As you can see, Luna is not exactly thrilled about this exercise.

"What are my people up to?"

After a couple minutes of me sweating, Luna mooing, and general chaos in the barn, the device was in place.  The nose is a very tender, vulnerable place on a cow. That's why you see a lot of rings in bull's noses.  I wouldn't like anything in my nose either.  Luna did not like this thing in her nose at all. She stomped around in disoriented fashion and at one point, went down to here knees.  No sir-ee. She didn't like this a bit.

Cmon Man!

Here is an up-close photo.  As you can see, the plate blocks her from opening her mouth to suck milk. It does, however, allow her to reach her head out, flatten the plate on the ground, and pull her head toward her to eat grass.  You'll also notice the points.  If/when she does try to nurse, the points will poke Daisy's bag and she'll promptly get a kick or a nudge to say, "Git!"

Testing a new-style (for us, anyway) weaning plate

In a few minutes, Luna seemed to calm down.  She still looked at me suspiciously, but overall, I think she was coming to grips with this change.  Growing up is tough, huh girl?

Normally, I would separate her, but now she is free to join the rest of the herd.  No more separating her each night!  This will save some time, although we'll now be milking Daisy in the morning AND the evening.  Luna promptly ran up to Daisy and tried to nurse, but it was to no avail.  The weaning plate did its job.  After a bit, she tired of trying as Daisy tried to console her by licking her on the neck.

It's gonna be alright, Luna.

As we left them together, Tricia and I wondered if Luna would pull a "Houdini" and figure out a way to get Daisy's milk or figure out a way to pry the nose plate out. We would know first thing Tuesday morning.  Well, Tuesday morning came and Daisy had a full bag of milk and sad Luna still had the nose plate in.  So far, so good.  We'll give it a while and report back to give a full review of the plastic weaning plate.

One benefit we always see when weaning calves is that the cream content of the milk goes up significantly.  We find this is due to the fact that the calf is getting all the 'hind milk' which is richer in cream.  Once weaned, we get all the cream.  That is a big plus for us!

Two Calves so far - One more coming at the end of the month!

Sometimes I'll just walk out in the pasture.  I always have lists of projects that I need to get done, but there are occasions in which I'll just take an aimless stroll and just observe things around me, soaking it all in.  On this particular day Clarabelle, our little 5 month old Jersey heifer, was cat-napping just to the west of the chicken tractor.  As I approached her, I could see her ears twitching.  She knew I was there, but she stayed sitting, ignoring me, with her neck stretched out on the soft grass as the warm sun shined down on her.

Cat-napping

I sat down beside her and scratched her neck while talking to her.  She finally looked at me, groggy and sleepy-eyed.  Clarabelle has already put on a thick winter coat, ready for the cold months yet to come.  Unfortunately it was 77 degrees, but the heavy fur coat didn't seem to bother her much.  She looks a lot like her Momma, Rosie.  She seemed to enjoy my company and I wasn't in much of a rush to go anywhere, so I just kind of stretched out in the grass and enjoyed the day.

Clarabelle at 5 months old

I heard a rustling noise behind me and turned around to see little Luna creeping up on us.  While Clarabelle has been broken and is real tame and loving, Luna is still real skittish.  She's Daisy's little heifer and she is only a month old.  She looks so small beside Clarabelle.

A curious visitor

While timid, Luna is curious to see what was going on.  Or maybe it is just a curious sight to see a grown man lying in the grass in the middle of the pasture. She probably just wanted to check things out.  Anyway I called her name and her ears stood out alert.  She had been nursing on her Momma, Daisy, and was satisfied with a belly full of rich milk.

In the late afternoon we'll call the cows into the barn and we'll put both calves in separate stalls in the barn for the night.  That way both Daisy and Rosie make milk for us from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.  We milk them first thing in the morning and then put the calves back on them all day.  It is a process that has worked out well for us. Soon, however, we'll wean Clarabelle, and that will mean morning and afternoon milking for Daisy.  Then later this month Amy will have her first calf and the cycle will continue.

I spoke nicely to Luna and she kept approaching me cautiously...

I stayed sprawled out on the grass.  I wish I would've gotten a better picture instead of one taken right into the sun.  Clarabelle is a reddish brown color - just like Rosie. Luna, on the other hand, is a golden, light brown color, sort of like honey.  She got closer and closer and I stretched out my hand to touch her nose...

And then all of a sudden her tail went straight up in the air and she took off faster than poop through a goose, running a big circle around us, and then she started jumping, hopping in a funny way.  Tricia says when they do that, it reminds her of popcorn!  All that activity made Clarabelle stop her slumbering and stand up. Like me, when awakened from a nap, she doesn't have much energy - not nearly the energy that Luna has.  

Time to get up

That ended the leisurely afternoon.  All good things must come to an end.  I stood up and headed in the general direction of the garden.  I had something on my list that needed to be done.  I'll show you that tomorrow.

Colostrum - It's Not Just for Baby Calves

Luna, our new baby calf, has discovered where the milk comes from and needs no more help from us. She hits her head on Daisy's bag, making the milk drop and then she moves from teat to teat, drinking vigorously until she's full.  Luna can't drink the quantity of milk that Daisy produces, even though Daisy's milk hasn't fully come in yet.  There is still a bit of colostrum in the milk.  Once Luna shows us that she's bored, we know that she's got enough colostrum/milk in her belly.  At that point we gently move her out of the way, clean up Daisy's teats with a soapy rag, and then milk her completely out.

Colstrum/Milk mixture

When Daisy's milk comes in, we'll definitely get more than this, and it won't have the bright yellow tint of the contents of these jars.  On the second day after the calf is born, we like to milk out the colostrum and freeze it as a sort of insurance policy if we should ever need to thaw it and give it to a calf in the future.

Understanding that cow colostrum has health benefits for humans, we tried to drink straight colostrum as well, but I'll be honest, I don't like the taste or the consistency.  It has a thickness to it that fools you into thinking that it would be like drinking melted ice cream - except it is not sweet and is kind of "oily".

Colostrum for us

The colostrum is thicker than milk, like cream and rises to the top.  After a couple of days, Daisy is producing enough milk so that the colostrum in it can just be shaken up and consumed without really noticing, and that's just what we do.    

THIS ARTICLE gives a lot of good information on the health benefits of drinking colostrum.  It goes into great detail, but here is a quick summary of what colostrum does for you:

It builds, repairs, strengthens and restores:
~the hormonal system back to levels associated with youth
~the immune system to it's top fighting form
~the digestive system to it's optimal function
~and it even provides you with every basic essential nutrient known

The article goes on to say, interestingly, that when the Australian Olympic swim team won a bunch of gold medals in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, they attributed part of their success to using colostrum supplements.  While we won't be swimming in the Olympics anytime soon, we are drinking colostrum in hopes of benefiting from some of the healing properties mentioned above.

Welcoming Luna! Our New Baby Heifer

Our alarm clock went off early Tuesday morning, and we went out to the barn to do the morning milking and chores.  The entire area was lit up brightly due to a full moon.  Tricia remarked to me how big and beautiful the moon was, surrounded by clouds like a halo, casting everything in a brilliant glow.  It immediately came to my mind that this full moon might induce an early delivery! Daisy's due date was November 3rd, but we've always heard the old wives tale that, even in humans, the full moon causes babies to be born.  We both wondered if this would be the case...

Full Moon on October 27, 2015

I received a call from Tricia as I was leaving work later that afternoon that Daisy had indeed had her baby!  Does that prove the full moon theory?  I'm not sure. Daisy's delivery is just anecdotal evidence, and if you search on the Internet, you can find studies that show some correlation, but many university studies say that the moon's stage doesn't have anything to do with the date of birth.  I don't know, but the moon affects the tide and many other things.  The body is made of 80% water. I'm not convinced that the moon doesn't have some effect on labor and delivery.  

When I got home, I walked out to the pasture and saw Daisy being very protective and mooing lowly. What do you have there, Daisy girl?

Moooo!

Well, looky here.  It's a baby.  A cute little brown calf, still wet, laying in the grass!

Daisy's Baby

First things first.  Is it a little heifer or a little bull?  I curiously lifted the back leg as Daisy comes close, mooing and telling me to leave her baby alone.  Immediately I see four little teats, proving that Daisy's baby is a HEIFER!  Daisy's previous babies were all bulls - Romeo, Stryker, and Bully.  It's high time for a little girl from ol' Daisy Lou.  So far this year, Rosie gave us Clarabelle - a heifer, Daisy gave us this little heifer and Amy will be calving around December 31.  We're 2 out of 3 so far, and we're hoping for all girls from our 3 Jersey milk cows.

It's a GIRL

Daisy continued to lick on her little calf, cleaning her up.  She was being very motherly.  We think that she was born around 2 pm that afternoon, and from what I could tell, I don't think she's been up yet.  It looked like she wanted to just lay in the grass and sleep.

The spit bath

I always get involved when maybe I shouldn't, but I lifted her up and she wobbled on spindly legs, very weakly...

A Shaky Start

And then she plopped back down.  The curious hens came to welcome her to the neighborhood and hopefully convince her to stand.  She appeared to ignore their encouragement as well as mine.  For some reason she just appeared a little weak.

Welcome to the Barnyard, little one

We were prepared for this from past experience, especially with Clarabelle, and had a product called Nursemate ASAP.  It is concentrated colostrum and is supposed to get the calves up and nursing faster.

Red Bull for the heifer

I unscrewed the cap, opened her mouth and pressed the plunger down slowly while it was on her tongue.  She immediately began sucking and licking and swallowing - all good signs.

Let's get you started, little girl

It started misting, so I moved some fresh hay bedding into the stall in the barn where Clarabelle usually stays.  I didn't want Daisy and her little calf out in the weather, so I evicted Clarabelle from her stall and went to get the new inhabitants. As she wasn't up to walking yet, I had to carry the heifer to the barn, and I was followed very closely by a big protective momma!  I sat the calf in the hay, closed the gate and left them alone for a while.

Daisy is not real happy with me

Tricia and I went back to the barn after we ate supper and noticed that Daisy had delivered the placenta/afterbirth in the stall. 

Delivery of the placenta

As the cows always do, they promptly eat it, chewing and slurping loudly.  Many think it is done in order to get rid of it so it doesn't attract predators who would endanger the newborn calf.  The placenta is also full of nutrients/antibodies, so it could be for health reasons as well.  In fact, people at my office told me that they are marketing placenta in pill form for humans to take as a supplement for this very reason.

To see the cow chowing down on the placenta is not a pretty sight.  Daisy actually started choking on it, and we thought we were going to have to do the Heimlich maneuver on her, if we could figure out how to do that on a cow.  Fortunately, she eventually dislodged it and then started the process all over again. 

Lovely

Now back to prettier sights!  Daisy's little girl is a beautiful light brown, honey color with big ears, big brown eyes and long eyelashes.  She is cute.  Still kind of weak, though, even after taking the Nursemate ASAP.  We tried to help her get up, but she's a lazy little thing and was content to just sit there in the hay.

Pretty little heifer

There's no time to sit, though.  The clock is ticking.  It is very important that the calf gets colostrum within the first 6 -12 hours.  The colostrum gives the calf nutrients as well as passive immunity from the antibodies contained within.  The gut closes after 12 hours and disables the calf from absorbing the antibodies in the colostrum.  We went to work encouraging her, but we were having little success. 

Where is it?

She did have a strong sucking reflex on my finger, though, and so we went and retrieved the big bottle/nipple.  I milked out some colostrum into the bottle.  A cow that has just delivered doesn't make a whole lot of colostrum.  Her milk hasn't come in yet. While her bag is swollen, it is not full of milk yet.  I filled the bottle about half full with everything I could get out of Daisy's teats, put the nipple on the bottle, and offered it to the little heifer.  BINGO!  She took to it immediately, sucking the bottle dry.

Drinking the colostrum from her momma!

She perked up immediately, wagging her little tail as she drank the colostrum. Happy and satisfied, we put them back in the stall and turned off the lights in the barn.  As Tricia and I walked back to the house, we realized that we hadn't named her yet, so we went inside and, along with Benjamin, started brainstorming good names.  Blue Belle?  Hazel?  Bessie?  Lulu?  Then Tricia came up with the perfect name:

LUNA, appropriate since she was born on the full moon.  Welcome to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, Luna!