Rosie is a HOG!

I know I've talked griped about this before, but today I have documentation so I'll show you a pictorial presentation of Rosie's preoccupation with mud holes.  Rosie is pregnant and it has been hot.  We do have shade for the cows in all of their paddocks that we rotate them through, but Rosie has found that laying in a mud puddle beats the pants off of laying in the shade when it comes to cooling off.  Here is Rosie's favorite mud hole, complete with Rosie's imprint of where she laid.

We would empathize with her and just let her be a hog on these hot days, but it is not hygienic to milk a muddy cow.  If the mud is dry, you can brush her off and get most of it off.  However, you should do this outside of the barn.  The resulting dust will fly all over the barn and contaminate the milking buckets.  Lately, Rosie has been coming in covered in wet mud.  That leaves us no choice but to tie here up by the fence, get out the hose and give ol' girl a full bath.  I got Tricia the big push broom in the barn and she turned the water hose on and soaked her.  I think she like it - Rosie, that is.

Tricia uses the broom head to get in all the "nooks & crannies" that harbor mud from the mud hole.



But the job is not done.  Tricia dutifully dries Rosie and uses a squeegee to really get her completely dry.  You don't want her to be wet.  There's nothing quite like being swished across the face with a wet tail.  Speaking of tails, washing the mud off of Rosie, though necessary, is kind of like chasing your tail.  The run-off from the water creates a bigger mud hole that Rosie will lounge in tomorrow, and that necessitates another bath.  And on and on it goes.  Come on, cool weather.  Get here quickly!