A New Project That Must Be Completed Before Winter

So that we can quarantine animals, we have a portion of the pasture fenced off in an area we call "the bull pen."  You see, the quarantining I'm talking about is not due to illness, but due to the wanton desires of the male species.  If you don't keep the males separated from the females, we've found that things get a little dangerous.  Wild hanky-panky notwithstanding, if you don't separate the males from the females, you cannot control the breeding date.

We generally keep the bull in the bull pasture until we see a cow or heifer go in heat and then we'll put her in the bull pen with the pull for a day of courtship and romance.  But it's not just the male of the bovine persuasion.  We keep the billy goat, Popcorn, in the bull pen, too.  For similar reasons, but for another as well.  Billy goats are, well, there's not a nice way to put it.  They're gross.  During their season of lust, they pee on themselves, all over their beard, and it stinks.  We don't want to be anywhere around them.

So here's where the project comes into play.  Goats aren't real fond of rainy weather.  The bull pen is gated into the barn, but the barn has the cows and heifer and also the does there.  We need to build some sort of small lean-to shed so that the billy goat and bull can get in out of the weather.  Nothing too big and nothing fancy and certainly nothing expensive.  So I decided to put up an 8x8 simple shed.  It will be closed on three sides and open to the south side.  In winter, it will provide a respite from the rain and north winds. 

Saturday, I enlisted Russ' help and we used a post-hole digger to place four 8 foot 4x4's into the ground in the bull pen and anchored them in with Quik Crete.  I kept the bull and the billy goat out of the bull pen for 24 hours to give the cement time to cure.  Nicky, the bull, has a propensity for rubbing his head on things, and I didn't want him to push the posts after we had worked hard to level them.  After 24 hours I put the bull and the billy back in the bull pen.

They were curious as to what the project was.  What are these posts in our pasture?  I felt sure they would set out to destroy the work we started, but so far, the posts have held firm.

I'll work on this as time allows, day by day, until we have a shelter for the Nicky and Popcorn.  Everyone needs to be able to get out of the rain, right?

Just in the Nick of Time

It was about 19 months ago that we borrowed a registered Jersey bull from a friend who lives about 10 minutes away from us.  The bull's name was Nick, and that dude was big and not halter broken.  We didn't know how things were going to work out, but he ended up being gentle and we got him to the house.  We unloaded him and he was able to breed LuLu.  Elsie did NOT get bred.  As it turned out, she had a cyst on her ovary and hopefully we got that fixed.  Rose Ethel did not get bred, either.  We think that she may be past her 'child-rearing' years.  She's old.  But you never know.  Abram laughed when he was told that Sarai would give him a son in his old age.

It's been almost a year since LuLu's bull calf, that we named Nicky, was born.  He was born at the hottest point of the year, during a drought.  LuLu was extremely stressed after calving and we thought that we were going to lose her.  We kept her alive by keeping a water sprinkler going that kept a small patch of bermuda grass growing and by feeding her sweet potato vines after she stopped eating.  We drenched her with molasses, too.  She pulled through and has raised a nice calf.  He's coming up on a year old on August 6th.  Here is Nick today:

Up to this point, he's been docile, but in our experience with previous Jersey bulls, that changes as they mature.  We're starting to notice that with Nick.  He uses his head as a weapon, threatening to come at you.  He'll also push the water troughs all over the barnyard.  He just likes hitting things with his big, meaty head.  We don't want one of those "things" he hits to be us, so we never turn our backs to him.

Our plans for him are what our plans have been for every Jersey bull calf born on our little farm - we'll eat him.  We'll give him another six or eight months to mature and, most importantly breed LuLu, Rosie, and Elsie and then we'll take him to the slaughterhouse.  We'll get all the meat, organs, bones, and tallow.  We use almost everything off of the animal.  It may seem cruel to some, but meat comes from somewhere, and that somewhere might as well be from our pasture where he's lived a good life, eating grass, with no antibiotics, hormones or medications.  

Progress Report on LuLu

In the middle of the long, hot summer last year, LuLu gave birth to her first calf, Nicky.  Calving in the worst possible time of year wasn't bad enough.  We happened to be in a drought.  We had no grass.  LuLu was in stress from labor and delivery and had no strength.  We babied her and her calf.  We ran water hoses to try to keep one small patch of pasture alive with bermuda grass.  We drenched her with molasses and gave her a calcium supplement.  

In all truth, we thought that we were going to lose her.  Slowly, she rebounded.  She and Nicky, although stressed, made it.  This year, the grass in the pasture is growing as we've had lots more rain than last year.  LuLu is a small cow and isn't a particularly large producer of milk like our other cows.  We get between a half gallon to a gallon each day.  She seems to have perfected the art of holding back her milk for her calf.  She is able, somehow, to not let her milk drop for us.  She's real tricky like that.

It's hot in the barn so we keep the fans running while she eats.  That helps in two ways:  It cools us and her down and it blows the mosquitoes away.

You can see we have some hay twine wrapped around her rear end that holds her tail out of the way.  LuLu will show her annoyance at us, if you don't wrap her tail, by swishing us in the face with her tail.  Although that's not such a bad thing, it is not an enjoyable experience if her tail is wet with dew or urine.

We hobble one of her back legs to a cleat on the 4x4.  That keeps her from kicking the bucket.  We've learned that lesson the hard way, having milked mostly a full bucket and then having her kick it over and spill the whole thing!  Hence the old saying, "You can't cry over spilled milk."  She isn't the type cow to kick you to hurt you, so that's a good thing.

We are talking about weaning Nicky within the next month.  That will take some of the stress off of LuLu for the peak summer months.  Plus, he's a big galoot and able to make it on grass as he approaches his one year birthday.  We'll be focusing on getting LuLu re-bred and Elsie bred to yield spring calves in 2025.

Treating LuLu's Mastitis

One morning we went out to milk LuLu and when we started to milk, something wasn't quite right.  LuLu is normally a gentle milker, but she kicked and kicked.  Tricia noticed that she was kicking when Nicky tried to nurse.  He's rough with her.  In a few days, she wasn't as sensitive, but she allowed Nicky to suckle.  The next time we went to milk her, we could tell that the left front teat was hard.  When we started to milk, it was difficult to get the milk to flow properly.  It was as if there was something messed up in the teat.  We assume that somehow Nicky, LuLu's bull calf, did something in nursing that messed it up.  

Due to the fact that the teat was damaged by Nicky, she didn't allow him to completely empty it out and LuLu got subclinical  mastitis in that front teat.  Tricia did the California Mastitis Test and confirmed that she had a slight case, even though there was no visible sign of mastitis in the milk from that teat.  The other teats were clear, so we've continued milking those for us.  We're leaving the affected teat for Nicky to clean up.  In a few days, the teat didn't appear to have the same difficulty in milking, but a trace of mastitis was still there.  

We knew that we needed to treat that front teat.  Tricia uses Synergy Animal Products product called Superior Cow Cream to put on the udder and Ex-Cell Countdown 7000 to treat up the affected teat into the quarter.  We got LuLu and Nicky together and let him completely empty her out.

We filled a syringe with 30 ml of product with a teat infusion cannula on the end.  We make sure we keep everything sterile.  We wash the teat with an alcohol swab.

The syringe is inserted into the affected teat.  You would have thought that she would kick, but she didn't.  She is used to standing there, without kicking, while we milk her.

The product was slowly injected.

And soon was emptied into the quarter.

We keep the the calf, Nicky, away from LuLu all day long.  Twelve hours later, we let him nurse and repeated with a second dose.  We separated them.  The next morning, we put them together, let him nurse, and then finished up with the third and final dose.  By the time the third dose was inserted, she kicked a little, letting us know that she was not happy with the treatments.

We'll now wait for seven days and then do another California Mastitis test on that teat to see if she is clear.  If it isn't, there are other products that we can try to resolve it.  In the meantime, we'll continue milking the other 3 quarters.  We'll see how the results from the test turn out and how we'll proceed in a week.

Fresh Milk from LuLu

LuLu gave birth to a little bull calf back in the hottest point of this summer in the middle of a drought with not much forage to eat.  Poor LuLu was so run down with the heat and rigors of labor and delivery that her condition deteriorated.  She got real skinny.  We babied her.  At several points, we didn't know if she was going to survive.  We drenched her with molasses, gave her minerals and supplements and what do you know?  'Ol LuLu pulled through.

She's not in terrific shape as the pasture went from full drought to dormancy for the fall/winter.  She's eating hay and a little sweet feed.  We have decided not to push her with daily milkings and have, instead, allowed her little bull calf to nurse on her at will.  Normally, we'd let them stay together and then separate the cow and calf overnight so we'd get the morning milk.  Instead, the calf has been getting all the milk and we haven't been milking.  This morning that changed.  We decided to slowly start milking.

Here is the bull calf.  We named him Nicky.  His daddy's name was Nick.  As we walked out this morning Nick was posing in his winter coat in front of the hay.  I nicknamed him "Nicky Hay-ley." 

We brought LuLu into the barn and quickly milked her while she ate her breakfast.  Since this is her first time in milk, she's a little nervous, but she doesn't kick while we milk her.  Tricia gets the two teats on the left and I sit on a stool on the right and get the two teats on that side.  In no time, we're done.

We milk into a stainless steel pail and use a muslin cloth as a filter to keep out the dust, hair, flies, hay, etc.  

Fresh, delicious, raw milk.  Tricia used some of this to make a big broccoli cheese soup using some of the broccoli florets we picked later in the afternoon.

The milk is still warm at this time as it just came out of the udder.  We pour it into half gallon sized mason jars and quickly chill it in the fridge.  LuLu isn't making a lot.  This morning we got just shy of a gallon of milk.

Once it has chilled for a bit, the cream rises to the top.  That is skimmed off and used for making butter, whipped cream to top homemade pies, or for coffee.

For years we milked every. single. morning.  It's been nice to have a break for a while.  But it's also nice to now have milk!  Funny thing is, fresh raw milk is, to us, a completely different product than the stuff from the store.  Good to have the real stuff back in our ice box!

Breaking Nicky

Nicky is LuLu's little bull calf.  He was born on August 5th and so that makes him 2 months old.  He's grown quite a bit.  He is frisky and spunky.  Lots of times we'll see him running around in the pasture, kicking up his heels with his tail in the air.  I've been thinking it is a good idea to begin breaking him as it is much easier to halter break them while they're young and small enough.  If they get too big, they end up pulling you instead of the other way around.

Many years ago, I would hook a lead rope to a halter and pull them.  It would be a literal tug of war.  I would pull and pull and pull.  The animal would pull and pull and pull back.  Sometimes the animal would flop on the ground.  Sometimes I would feel like flopping on the ground, too.  Eventually, the calf would get the idea that it is easier and less painful to just relent and go in the direction that I was pulling.  The animal would walk a few steps and then get stubborn again.  I would continue to pull until the calf would give in.  It took weeks.  It was hard work.  If you were persistent and kept at it, before long the animal would be broken.  The calf would go willingly anywhere you wanted it to go.

There is a much easier way to do it, I learned.  The same principle is used, but it doesn't require as much energy as the way I used to do it.  Each day when I go out to the barn, I get the breaking halter.  Nicky sees me doing that and plays this game where he runs away.  I feed his momma and while he's distracted, I stealthily put the rope around his neck and fit the halter around his head and nose.  Then I tie him securely to a solid post.  The goats are very interested in this process, as you can see.

While I have him tied up, it's a good opportunity to check out his horns.  A few weeks ago we used a de-horning iron to kill his horn buds.  The place where the horns were growing is flat.  No new growth.  The only thing remaining is a small scab.  Nicky will not have horns.  That makes Our Maker's Acres Family Farm a safer place.

What Nicky will do is this:  He will pull against that fence post as hard as he can.  Two safety precautions I'll mention:  Always leave enough slack so that if the animal falls down, he won't hang himself.  It is important to secure the animal to a place where they can't walk around and around and have the rope tighten up on them and choke them.  We had a friend have a calf the died like that.  We learned that if we are going to do this, we ALWAYS are nearby to supervise.

The calf pulls and pulls in stubborn fashion.  At some point, a light bulb goes off in it's head, saying, "It is a lot more comfortable to back off and stop pulling against this post."  When that concept has been considered and accepted, instead of pulling tightly, they take a few steps toward the post.  That loosens the halter around their head and nose.  We haven't reached that point yet.

To see if any headway is being made in the breaking process, from time to time, I'll untie him from the fence and pull around the pasture.  Nicky is still fighting me with everything he's got.  Just look at the determination and stubbornness in that little face.

That just means we've got more work to do.  I'll continue tying him to a post.  At some point (all calves' demeanor is different) he will acquiesce and I'll be able to lead him.  But that point hasn't arrived yet.  We will keep at it.  Sooner or later, things will come together and he'll lead.  Perhaps when Nicky is halter broken, he'll sing the old hymn, "He Leadeth Me, O Blessed Thought."  It will be a blessed thought indeed.

Update on LuLu and Nicky

We last reported about LuLu calving in the hottest, driest, most miserable time ever.  It put her in heat stress and possibly a touch of milk fever.  We have been doctoring on her for a week now.  I have been running the water sprinkler since we haven't had rain in a month.  I'm trying to keep a patch of grass alive for her to eat.  Here's old girl standing in the water sprinkler cooling off.  Reminds me of what we'd do when we were kids!

We have been feeding her a little sweet feed mixed with alfalfa and have been drenching her 3 times a day with molasses, apple cider vinegar and Epsom salt.  At first we were bottle feeding Nicky a little bit to supplement, but we've stopped that.  LuLu appears to be producing milk for him.  In fact, we milked out her back teats last night.  We don't want her to get mastitis.  We'll soon start milking once a day.  Nicky is looking spry and healthy now.

His umbilical cord has not fallen off yet.  We have been checking his little horn buds on his head.  I would assume in another week, we'll de-horn him.  He won't like that a bit!

LuLu is not out of the woods, but I wouldn't say she's in "ICU" like she was.  Here she is slowly eating sweet feed mixed with alfalfa.

And here she is eating some hay while keeping a close eye on her little bull calf.  Although a first time mother, she has the motherly instincts.

If we would just get some rain and some cooler temperatures, I think things would get better.  We see no respite in sight.  Next week temperatures one day are showing 104.  Yikes!

LuLu's in Stress

LuLu calved in what might be the worst possible time.  It's hot as Death Valley and there is a high pressure sitting over us that has not allowed it to rain in a long time.  The heat index daily hits "feels like 107."  There appears to be no end in sight.  The pasture, which is normally green looks like this:

The heat, drought, and calf delivery has put LuLu in heat stress.  Although we have administered CMPK gel (Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, and Potassium) we don't think it is full on Milk Fever.  However, her appetite is not good and she completely stopped eating hay for a few days.  We're concerned about her.

We have been mixing sweet feed with alfalfa pellets to feed her.  She SLOWLY eats it.  We watch to ensure she's drinking water.  She has begun, once again, to eat hay, albeit slowly.

It is important to keep her rumen working and help her to get things balanced.  We've been mixing up molasses, apple cider vinegar and epsom salt drenches and then, three times a day, holding her head up and getting that mixture down her throat.

To take a little strain off of her, we've been supplementing LuLu's colostrum for little Nicky with bottles of Jersey cow milk we are buying from a neighbor.  Tricia and I mix up bottles twice a day to give him.  Nicky would rather nurse from his mother, but he's getting enough down where he's hydrated.  We see him peeing and also see him jumping around with energy.  That's evidence that he's getting what he needs.

Each day we're picking sweet potato vines from the garden and feeding LuLu.  It's her favorite thing.  When she won't eat anything else, she'll eat this.

LuLu sits in the shade mostly all day and gets out to graze on the pasture at night when it is a cool 80-something degrees.  She's making limited progress, but Tricia and I have settled in for a long road of nursing her back to health and we'll do what it takes.  If we could just get a break from the heat and if it would only rain, we could experience healing in our animals and land.  At night we've resorted to running a water sprinkler in the pasture where we have LuLu isolated so that at least some green Bermuda grass will grow.  We're doing everything we can and hope and pray we'll be able to save her.  

Welcome Nicky, LuLu's Baby Calf

The days are hot,

The temperatures rise,

Tongues hang out with exhausted sighs,

The ground is parched,

The grass is chaff.

But lo!  LuLu has birthed a calf!

This is the sight that greeted us on this Lord's Day as we did chores before Worship Service.  Although we were expected it about a week from now, this was a little early.  LuLu wasn't huge and her bag wasn't in "bloom" until this morning.  It's her first calf.  She's very nervous and high-strung.  When we discovered the baby, LuLu was just in the process of licking him to clean him up.  He tried, unsuccessfully, to stand up.  His long, wobbly legs gave way and he clumsily fell back in the dust.

We've had many chicks hatch out and some goats that have kidded lately, but it has been a couple of years since the last calf was born on the homestead.  It's an exciting time!  More on that later.  You look into the eyes of the calf and wonder what they're thinking.  Just last night they were secure in a dark, climate-controlled, safe location.  Now, strange creatures are looking at you, chickens are pecking at your soft hooves, the bright sun hurts your eyes.  What an awakening!

The first thing we check is the sex.  It's a... bull calf.  We always hope for heifers.  However, we're happy to get a healthy little calf.  This little guy's dad was a registered Jersey named Nick.  Tricia suggested that we name him in honor of his father.  So, we welcome NICKY to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  LuLu's sister, Elsie, came to see her new nephew.  Sniff, sniff.  They always smell them.

Could there be a worse time to calve?  I suppose so, but this heat does stress the animals.  We decided to move Nicky and LuLu to the shade on the south side of the barn.  It will be oppressively hot by the time we get back from church and eat and have time to come out and check on things.  LuLu still needs to deliver the placenta, finish cleaning up Nicky, nudge Nicky so that he stands up and begins to drink colostrum.  That's a lot of items on the agenda!  We hayed LuLu and headed off to church.

After worship and a big plate of chicken stew over rice, sliced beets, cranberry sauce, and coffee and chocolate persimmon cake for dessert, we changed and headed out to the barn/nursery to check on the situation.  I've got to tell you not much had happened in our absence.  They were both sitting down.  They're not in a rush like we are.  LuLu had delivered the placenta, but Nicky had not stood up.  He was taking in a Sunday afternoon nap.

Tricia and Russ got him up on wobbly legs and in three shakes of a billy goat's tail, he was walking around and falling an awful lot.  Practice makes perfect, though.  He'll get it.  We got an extension cord and rigged up a fan for LuLu to cool the new momma down.  She wasn't interested much in having all this attention.  Nicky would try to find the teats, but LuLu wasn't being cooperative.

We tried to put LuLu in the head gate so that we could work with her and Nicky.  Wouldn't you know it, a bunch of wasps had built a nest in the head gate.  As I started getting her head in there, wasps came flying out.  I went back to the garage and got some gas and ended the wasps' rebellion with the quickness.  

After some time, we were able to get Nicky to nurse.  I am positive that he got some colostrum.  We'll work with him more after evening services.  I want to get his little belly full so that he gets more energy and antibodies to strengthen his immune system.  We've got to get the little fellow to stand on his own!  Right now, we're having to help him get his feet under him.

In church this morning, we sang the old hymn, "How Firm a Foundation."  This was President Theodore Roosevelt's favorite hymn.  The lyrics and music are poignant and worshipful.  Coincidentally, part of the lyrics mention 'causing thee to stand.'  (Very appropriate for little Nicky!)

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!

What more can He say than to you He hath said—

To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,

For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;

I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.

We'll continue to stand by to offer LuLu assistance.  We'll try to get plenty of colostrum into Nicky.  It's thick, yellow, oily, and nutritious. Then we'll milk the remainder out and freeze it.  That's a good insurance policy to have tucked away in the freezer.  Pretty soon we'll be back to daily milking - in this sweltering sauna in the south.  Not quite ready for that after a long reprieve from milking, but here we go again!  LuLu will require some working with as it's her first calf and she's never been milked before and she's as wild as a March hare.  We might have a rodeo on our hands, but that's okay.  It's always an adventure!