LuLu's Time is Approaching

When the cows go into heat, we put them in the same pen as the bull.  The bull, for safety reasons, is kept in a separate pen that we call the 'bull pen.'  We've communicated that while Jersey cows are the most docile, gentle creatures, Jersey bulls are a different story.  As they get breeding age, they become mean.  Jersey bulls kill more farmers and ranchers than other breeds.  We keep a wary eye on Nicky the bull for that reason, not wanting to add to the statistics.  Once bred, we move the cows back into the general population and mark down the days until calving.

Cows gestate at the same time period as humans - nine months until labor and delivery.  LuLu's due date is July 12th.  We've been keeping our eye on her.  The last time she delivered Nicky a couple of years ago, it was in July - the peak of the summer heat and it was in the middle of a drought.  I moved the water sprinkler out to the pasture to keep some bermuda grass alive for her to eat on.  She was in much distress.  We supplemented with sweet potato vines and molasses.  She made it, but we were worried for a while.

LuLu is in good conditioning, but she's hot.  She breathes heavy and lays around in the shade and in the mud.  Hopefully this will be an easier calving for her.  We're hoping for a little heifer this time as Rosie is too old to breed and Elsie looks like she's not going to be able to get pregnant.  It's a shame about Elsie because she is a beautiful A2/A2 heifer, but we're not going to keep her on pasture to just eat grass.  LuLu, for her first calf, didn't have a very big bag and was not a big milk producer, making only enough for our family (and her calf).  We're counting on this second time, that she'll be a bigger producer.

If you look at LuLu's back end, you can see that she's "bagging up."  Her udder is filling with colostrum and later, milk.  This is a sure sign that things are progressing and her time is getting close.

One day soon, we'll see her in labor and we'll have a new little one on the farm.

For now, we watch and wait.  In the meantime, I've got to get the barn roof patched.  Last year a storm put a big limb on top of the barn that punctured the tin roof, allowing rain to drip through directly over the milking stall within, filling the eating trough with rainwater.  We can't have that going on, but looking back, it would have been better to fix this issue in cooler weather.  I'll be up there like a cat on a hot tin roof, patching the hole.  We'll keep you posted on LuLu's calving and the 'gender reveal party' for her little one.

The Mobile Vet

Tricia called Dr. Chip, the Mobile Vet, to make a farm call and palpate the cows.  We have the bull in a separate pasture because he's dangerous.  When we see the cows coming into heat, we put them into the bullpen with the bull and let them get amorous.  Over the months, they have come back into heat, meaning that they were not bred.  We don't know what the problem is.  Perhaps the bull is not "hot."  Maybe there is a problem with the cows.  We wanted to get those issues addressed.

The veterinarian arrived and Tricia got the three cows isolated in the barn and in the head gate so that the vet could put on his rubber gloves and palpate.  First up was Rosie.  Rosie is eighteen years old.  The vet said she is NOT bred, but is still cycling, meaning she COULD still get pregnant.

Next up was Elsie.  Elsie is a beautiful heifer.  She is also A2/A2, so is highly sought after.  Up to this point she has not calved.  Another vet on a previous farm call, removed a cyst from her ovary.  She came into heat after that.  The Mobile Vet said that there was fluid and a fetus that the body would absorb and then she'd go into heat again.  So she DID get bred but lost the baby.  The vet thinks we should get rid of her, but we want to try just one more time.

The final was LuLu.  He palpated LuLu and said that she is two months' pregnant.  So she'll be calving in the heat of summer in July 2026.  Summer is not the opportune time for calving and milking, but we'll take what we can get.

LuLu is two months pregnant

So we know that Nicky, the bull, is fertile and will continue putting him and Rosie and Elsie together when they go into heat in hopes that we can get them all bred.

We Hope It Will "Take" This Time

We were disappointed to see Luna go into heat again.  We had brought her down the road to be bred about three months ago.  A friend of ours has a registered Jersey bull and charges $100 - $150 stud fee.  The fee is guaranteed in the sense that if the cow is not bred, we keep bringing her back until she becomes pregnant.  The friend only lives about five miles down the road.  The close proximity is important to us because if the cow we bring to have bred is still in milk, we travel to her each day to milk her.

We track our cows' cycles and when we noticed Luna go into heat after having been exposed to the bull, we contacted our friend to schedule the services of his bull, loaded Luna up in the trailer and rolled north on Highway 26 to Hathaway, Louisiana.  We unloaded her from the trailer as the big bull came to check out the new girl. 

On Saturday we got a call from the friend with an update.  The bull and Luna stayed together for several days and although he didn't see the breeding take place, he saw signs of breeding on her tail.  After that the bull and Luna stayed on opposite sides of the pasture.  Hopefully a fertile seed was planted.  We made arrangements to go pick her up Sunday after church.  We hooked up the trailer to Benjamin's truck and made the short trip.

We retrieved Luna and the big bull came up to the fence to tell her goodbye after we got her out.

He had mud caked all over his head.  Bulls are notorious for rubbing their heads all over everything.  What a muddy guy!

When we pulled back up to the house, Luna was excited when she heard the cows at home moo-ing to welcome her back.  She lifted up one ear in anticipation.  I take that back about the cows welcoming her back.  They were probably lamenting her return.  Luna, although a runt, is the bully of the pasture.  She has lots of self-confidence and thinks she is big and bosses the other cows around.
 

We opened the gate and let her back into the pasture.  She glared at us and then trotted off to re-assert herself as Queen of the pasture.

We are hoping that she is bred this time.  One thing that worries us a little is that she is fat like a beef cow instead of a dairy cow.  We have been told sometimes that will affect their ability to become pregnant.  We've got the date marked on the calendar.  If she comes in heat again, we'll make the short trip back to try again.  If at first you don't succeed...

Ain't no fence strong enough...

Ain't no mountain high enough, aah

Ain't no valley low enough

Ain't no river wide enough

To keep me from you

Yes, those were Diana Ross' words in one of her famous songs.  Barriers are no obstacle at all when the love bug bites.  We learned this just this past week.  We had noticed that Rosie (our oldest Jersey cow) had come into heat.  It becomes evident because all of the cows begin jumping on one another.  Hormones are running high at this time and it is a good thing that we keep our bull, Astro, in what we call the bull pen.

We keep him away from the momma cows because we don't want him breeding them.  We are keeping him until the end of the summer and we'll bring him to the butcher shop to replenish our freezer with fresh grass fed beef.  This pen we keep him in borders the pasture and is largely made of hog wire topped with a strand of barbed wire.  It is strong and an effective barrier.

There is one area we call the 'chute' that connects the bull pen to the barn and corral.  It is made up of cattle panels that are stapled into 4 x 4 posts and reinforced with t-posts in the middle of the 16 foot span.  It is strong, too.  

A while back Tricia told me that Buckwheat, the buck, had been rubbing on the cattle panels.  Goats are notorious for rubbing themselves on fences.  Tricia mentioned that the goat's rubbing had loosened the panel from the 4 x 4s.  I meant to fix it.  I really did.  But I was distracted and never quite got around to it.

Well last week we were about to do chores and I looked out at the cows in the pasture with their calves.  Something seemed out of place.  There were too many animals out there!  I asked Tricia, "Does it look to you like Astro, the bull, is with the other cows?"  The answer was "yes."  Oh no!  I ran out to the pasture and watched with dismay as Astro mounted Rosie.  Not good.  After closer inspection, I could see that Astro had pushed open the panel where the goat had previously loosened it and squeezed on out to join the ladies.

I led Rosie into the bull pen with Astro closely following behind.  Then I led her out, leaving Astro in the bullpen.  He is getting to be a big fellow, and there was no fence high enough to keep him from his love.

I got a hammer and some more staples and fixed the fence.  I should have done that weeks ago.  Sometimes due to competing priorities, pressing jobs get pushed back until it's time (or past time) to get them done.  Do you ever do that?  It didn't take long to fix.  I may even come back and reinforce it further with some tie wire.  But that reminds me of the old quote about "closing the barn door after the horse is already out."

If what we observed did indeed take place, Rosie may be calving again in March 2020.  Astro is not her calf and he is A2/A2, so it is not the end of the world, but we were trying to introduce some new genetics into our little herd.  We've marked the date and will watch Rosie to see if she comes back into heat in about 21 days.  We will keep you posted on Rosie and if she's pregnant.

As I think of the power of love, I think of another song about barriers being insufficient in keeping love apart.  This one a duet by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn:

Hey, Louisiana woman, Mississippi man

We get together every time we can.

The Mississippi River can't keep us apart

There's too much love in the Mississippi heart.

Too much love in this Louisiana heart.

The power of love can make one leap over fences or rivers or mountains.  Speaking of leaping, we made a leap in this blog post - from Motown to Classic Country.  

Ol' Rosie - Almost Time!

What are some things that catch your eye in the photo below?

The first thing, I'm sure, is that I've taken the photo facing into the morning sun.  You're not supposed to do that.  It gives the picture a hazy appearance.  The second thing is likely the muddy ground.  The cows are standing in ankle deep mud to eat their hay. They slosh through the mud and walk around the hay ring to eat.  What a mess!  The goats absolutely hate walking through water and mud, but they'll eventually get there.  As you can see, they are small enough to fit through the hay ring and they stand on the pallet I place underneath the bale to keep it out of the mud and water.  Behind the hay you can see the remnants of the water oak tree we took down this summer.  I'll eventually get that cut up and stacked.

What may be less evident from the photo is Rosie's girth.  She is very pregnant.  I think her due date is in four days.  We can feel her baby kicking in her belly every day.  Rosie's vulva is becoming 'flabby,' which is a sure sign of imminent calving.  We've also begun to see mucous discharge, but her bag hasn't really begun to 'bloom' yet.  We'll be keeping a sharp eye on her.  As usual we are praying for a heifer.  Our freezer is full of meat, so we don't really need a bull calf right now.  A heifer would be ideal.  We could either use her as a replacement or we could sell her and make some rare farm income.  One thing I'm a little concerned with is the deep mud due to all the rain we've had.  If it doesn't dry up soon (and that doesn't seem likely), a little calf will have its work cut out for her/him walking in all the mud.  We may have to keep them in the barn for a while until things dry out.

Anyway, we'll keep you posted when Rosie goes into labor and delivers the newest arrival at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

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!

Luna The Runt

Luna is our youngest Jersey heifer.  Something went wrong in the genetics I guess and Luna just never grew.  She is a runt.  She doesn't know she is a runt, though, and is very bossy, just like her mother.  Well, the runt is an expectant mother now.  The best we can figure, her due date is somewhere around the first of April.

We noticed the other day that her udder is beginning to swell up and that is one of the first signs that the big day for little Luna is approaching.

A few days later we noticed that her udder, while small in comparison to our other Jerseys, is swollen.  Not only is her udder swollen, but so is her vulva.  When they near their time to calve, the vulva becomes "flabby."

Here you can see Luna in the foreground and her mother, Daisy, in the background.  Daisy is much larger than her, but other than that, they are clones.  Luna is Daisy's 'mini-me!'

Even though Luna is a runt, I've been told that this doesn't necessarily mean that her calf will be a runt.  We'll have to wait and see.  Lots of babies around here this spring!

Rosie (Soon!)

Here is a nice picture of Rosie, our Jersey milk cow.  This was taken on a nice day. Today the weather (thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Harvey) is not so nice. Lots of mud and rainwater everywhere!

The weather has been pretty bad.  When I neared home this afternoon, there was a tornado that touched down about a mile from the house.  It didn't damage anything as it touched down in the middle of a field.  I changed clothes, put on my rubber boots and headed out to feed the wet chickens, wet goats and wet cows.  The cows didn't even come into the barn.  They were busy eating grass out in the pasture.

The cows tend to enjoy rainy weather as it drops the temperature so that they can partake in their favorite hobby in comfort - eating grass.  It began to rain harder and harder so I didn't walk out to see how the cows were doing.  Tricia asked me when I came inside to eat supper if I had inspected Rosie. "No," I told her, "they didn't come in and the weather was too nasty to go out and see her."  The reason she wanted me to check on her is that Back in this Post we told you about getting the cows palpated.

When our vet came over, he told us that Rosie was bred.  We calculated that she was bred on December 8th and that gives her a due date of September 8th.  Rosie is getting close to having a baby calf.  Wouldn't you know it the weather is miserable out there and tomorrow the weakened storm that has caused so many to the west of us so much misery will be passing directly over us.  I don't want her to calve in the middle of a storm!

Yesterday, I did check on Rosie and I could not see her bags swelling up or other signs like her vulva getting "floppy."  Benjamin doesn't have school tomorrow so I'll have him go check Rosie out.  We always want to be ready in the event that there is any trouble during calving.  Hopefully in just a few days we'll have a new baby on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  As always, were hoping we get a heifer!  We will keep you posted.

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 Power of Attraction

Ol' Rosie girl's milk production has been coming steadily down lately.  She's making less and less milk and that's really odd.  Daisy only has three teats and she's giving more milk that Rosie.  Rose Ethel has always been our biggest milk producer, while Daisy's milk is richer, with more cream in her milk.  Something's going on with Rosie and we can't quite figure out what it is.  She's eating well and there is still plenty of grass in the pasture for her to graze.  She's not sick or acting strangely.  Heat does seem to affect her more than the other cows and she spends a good part of the day laying in the mud in the shade, but she's always done that. What could it be?

I call Tricia, "Theory Woman" sometimes, because she always has a theory about everything.  Of course she has a theory about Rosie's reduction in milk.  And here it is: Some things are attracted to one another like a magnet to steel.  Some things put together just make a good pair like peanut butter and jelly, rice and gravy, and red beans and rice.  Some attractions are deleterious like that of Samson and Delilah and David and Bathsheba.  While yet other attractions are good and natural, but the timing is not quite right.

Tricia thinks that prior to building our "bull pen" that you see below that cordons off the bull from all the cows, Chuck escaped and bred Rosie.  At that time we were trying (unsuccessfully) to keep them separated by just using an electric fence and that is about as effective as a screen door in a submarine. Chuck got out one night and Tricia saw he and Rosie together while she was in heat.

We are not positive that Rosie is bred, but Chuck did break through the fence at the time when she was in heat and she may have been exposed.  We also haven't seen her go in heat since then.  Finally, a reduction in milk production is a natural occurrence for cows that are bred.  We're going to take a blood test from Rosie and send it off to confirm just to be sure.  Tricia counted back and if she was bred, she'll calf in April.  There's no other bull, so if she's bred, you're looking at the guilty party:

Incarceration

If she is indeed bred, is it the end of the world?  No, it's not, but our goal was to have all of the cows exposed to Chuck in December or January.  In so doing, they would all calve at once.  This, we've learned from experience, is just a lot easier to manage.  It also means that we would dry them off at the same time, giving us a break from milking.  Oh well, we will just have to give Rosie a pregnancy test and if we have an April baby, we'll have an April baby...  And we'll chalk it up to a lesson learned - the power of attraction between a bull and a cow is too much for an electric fence to hold back!

Almost Time for Annie to Kid

Back in September, we posted HERE about taking our Nubian goat, Annie, down the road to get bred.  Our neighbor has a Nubian buck.  We left her with the buck for a while and then our neighbor informed us that she was bred successfully and we picked her up.  To the best of our calculations, Annie should be kidding before the end of the month.  Her belly is pretty big and oddly shaped.  She spends a lot of time just laying around.

Oddly Shaped Annie

Annie miscarried in her first pregnancy, so we're hoping for better results this time. I began to read a little on kidding and learned that, like a cow, the last few days before delivery, the udder will fill with milk.  We're already seeing her start to "bag up," so it can't be too much longer.  The article stated that delivery will take five hours - Four hours for dilation and one hour for delivery of the kid.  Twins are quite common with goats, so we'll be on the lookout for two!

Wide Load

A normal delivery is when the kid presents right side up, with front feet out, with the head between the legs.  We're praying for a normal position and delivery.  We are keeping our eyes on her.  When Annie was born, her momma, Nellie, delivered her in secret.  We never saw here in labor and only found Annie after she had been born for an hour or two.

Momma to be

Like in calving, baby goats should be standing within a few hours after birth and looking to begin nursing.  It's always an exciting time when babies come, whether they be calves, chicks, or kids. We'll keep you posted and be sure to show plenty of baby pics.  Baby goats are cute little critters.  We will be happy to have new babies and goat milk once again.  

Palpating the Cows

It was time to see of Lil' Bully had successfully bred Rosie and Daisy.  He's eighteen months old, but still a little short when compared to the cows.  We have the cows' cycles written down on the calendar and when "their time is right" we've seen some action in the pasture and know that Bully has been romancing them.

After a couple of months we decided to call our local veterinarian to come over for a farm call.  His office is only a half mile away.  I was at work and Tricia was here to watch the entire process and I wanted her to catch it on film and chronicle the ordeal.  I regret to inform you that yours truly did not have the batteries adequately charged in the camera and when she went to take pictures, the battery was dead.  But no worries, I have a spare battery in the camera case, except it was dead too.

We're just going to have to use our imagination here.  Tricia brought the cows to the barn and Dr. Fontenot put on some gloves that went clear up to his shoulders and lubricated them up real good. Then he put his entire arm into the back end of the cows and felt around.  It was not a pretty affair.  Cow poop all over the place.

After about 30 seconds of palpating Rosie, he asked Tricia how long ago she thought she had been bred.  Tricia answered two months.  He said, "Yep, that's how old it feels like the calf is."

Rosie's gonna have a baby

Then on to Daisy.  He checked her out and checked her out again.  He asked how long Tricia thought she was bred.  Tricia answered 5 months.  Dr. Fontenot said, "Nope.  I don't feel anything insider her."  Tricia let him know that she hadn't been cycling, so he checked out her ovaries and everything was fine.

Well that's not good news.  Tricia still maintains she's bred, but I don't think the doctor could miss a five month old calf inside her.  If that's true, though, that Bully hadn't bred her, we'll be out of milk from Daisy for a long time.

Daisy's test turned out negative

We know the bull is fertile since he bred Rosie.  For some reason he didn't get the job done with Daisy.  We'll likely dry her off after the first of the year.  The veterinarian told us that he didn't have much experience with dairy cows, but he said for beef cattle, he would pull the calf off for a couple of days and it would help her to go into heat. Maybe in another month or two Bully will grow a little bit and that will help.  

So Rosie will be calving in about 6 months.  As far as Daisy, well, we'll keep her exposed to the bull and we have a couple of other options to think about as well. We know another gentleman that lives nearby who has a registered Jersey bull and when Daisy is dry, he's offered his bull's services.  If at first you don't succeed, try try again...  And that's what we'll do!

Daisy and Rosie will be calving in March

Back 21+ years ago when we were expecting our first baby, we purchased the book shown below to give us insight about all the changes going on.  I remember being nervous about being a Dad for the first time and we wanted to make sure we did everything we could to ensure a healthy pregnancy and delivery so the book was worn out by the time Laura Lee was born.  I thought it did a good job of answering most of the questions we had that cropped up each week as the baby (Laura Lee) grew.

Image Credit

I've searched Amazon and I can't find a book entitled, "What to Expect when your Cow is Expecting," but that's okay, we've had many calves born on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, so we're prepared.  We do have a book called, "Keeping a Family Cow" that has an entire chapter dedicated to calving and we've dog-eared that book on a page or two!

This year we wanted to plan the exposure of the bull to the two momma cows so that we get a Spring baby. The livestock shows are in January - February time frame and when you are showing Dairy Cows you want them to calve just before the show so that the bag is full and 'bloomed.'  The problem with that is that the show schedule doesn't coincide with Spring grass.  We've had difficulties in years' past, getting a good stand of winter rye grass.  I will try yet again this year, but having baby calves in the winter means the momma cows are in milk and producing milk with no grass - only hay and a little feed and that puts the cows at a nutritive disadvantage.

This year we wanted to time calving with the advent of the new, rich, green, Spring grass and clover that overtakes the pasture in order to put the cows at their optimal condition for producing milk for the calves (and US!)  We have Daisy and Rosie's cycles on a calendar.  We know exactly when they'll be in standing heat and we kept Bully, our bull away from them each month until we were ready.  It wasn't easy. There are lots of hormones raging out there on the pasture.  As soon as we're positive that they are bred, we'll sell Bully.  He's a registered Jersey and has a positive A2 A2 genetic test - a positive thing.  I'd like to be nice and say that we'll be sad to see him go, but I'm not.  We're just not set up to have a bull out on our little pasture.

Rose (left), Bully (middle), and Daisy (right)

During their last cycle we let Bully 'romance' them both and we thought that he was successful in breeding them, but we didn't know for sure until we put the bull back with the girls during their "time" and no romancing occurred.  That information coupled with the fact that milk production has dropped sharply, let us know that the girls are expecting again.  Hormonal changes in a pregnant cow cause milk production to drop. That seems only logical to me that the cow will need to spend her energy growing a baby rather than making milk.

Right now, there's not much for us to do.  Cows have been calving for thousands of years (mostly) without human intervention.  We'll make sure that they have access to good grass and fresh water and access to shade.  We'll give them a little feed during milking and give them access to minerals. Yesterday, it was oppressively hot and humid.  Rosie seemed to be panting more than usual and just having a hard time, so we brought the water hose out and sprayed her down to cool her off.  It perked her up.  Other than that, we'll dry them both off a couple of months prior to calving and look forward to Spring babies - hopefully heifers!