Well it's been two months since Rosie's no good, horrible, very bad day. In this post: Watch Where You Step! you can see what happened. For two months now, we've been having to milk out her one quarter once a day since she kicks and won't let her calf, LuLu nurse from it. It has healed so that there is only a small scab. She's come a long way, baby. So you would think that she would let LuLu nurse off it now. But, no. She kicks her off. Perhaps it is habit as we can't understand that it would still be that painful after two months' healing time. Or the calf is too traumatized to even try after being kicked for two months each time she tries to suck off of that injured teat and now she doesn't even try.
Whatever the reason, we have to put an end to this. Here's the plan and how it unfolded. We figured that we would separate LuLu from Rosie all night so she was good and hungry. Prior to putting LuLu with her, we would cover Rosie's other three teats, leaving the (slightly) injured one exposed, forcing LuLu to go after it. Sounds like a good plan, right?
We used Tricia's flannel shirt draped over Rosie's bag as the barrier.
We worked to cover up the three uninjured and very full teats so that LuLu could not get to those.
We got some baling twine to tie the shirt tightly to keep it in place. Not a pretty or professional job, but hopefully a workable one.
Here's where we test things out. We let LuLu out of the stall. She runs to her momma, at first confused by the shirt covering up her breakfast. There's only one teat instead of four. And it's the one that Rosie doesn't let her nurse on. What a dilemma!! Tricia helped to direct her to it. Rosie kicked. LuLu kept trying.
It was at an odd angle, so LuLu switched around to the back. At this angle she was able to get it. She nursed for a while and it worked!
Unfortunately, the very next morning we found that LuLu DID NOT nurse on the injured quarter. We'll have to continue working with her. Hopefully, we'll see a breakthrough soon.
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