Post by simplynaturalfarm on Jun 5, 2011 14:20:28 GMT -5
Okay, you all know about my issues with Tildy. That DH took over milking her because she was a pill. WEll, here we are 25 o r 28 days after freshening and not only has it not gotten better, it has gotten about 100x worse. She has not had her calf and does not moo for him or pine for him. She is simply a pill that I want gone yesterday!
Morning and evening we have to chase her to catch her (she has a lead rope attached, but knows to keep 11 feet away from us), she will run us over to get places so we have to carry our show stick to whack her if she tries it. Or else she stubbornly refuse to move while you pull her and if I try to get close to her HQ to give her a whack with the stick she will run backwards as fast as she can until she hits the electric fence and gets zapped.
Once in the barn she doesn't go into the headgate (and this after almost 4 weeks of milking), and while she knows she is in major trouble if she moves her hind legs, she will dance with her front feet and then smash around with her head giving us the evil eye. She eats the treats the whole time huffing and snorting, and it takes DH about 45 minutes just to catch and milk her morning and evening and while she was at 3.5 gallons for a while, she is down to 1.5-2 gallons now.
She's not in heat, has no mastitis issues, no health issues (vet did a full check *G*). . . . we just don't get it. The others come in to be milked immediately and are darlings about it. There are nights when DH has to tie Tildy to the bale ring all night to make sure he can milk her the next morning without a chase or he won't make it to work on time.
THe one day he had to go to work and he left without milking her thinking she'd be mooing by night time, but NO, she couldn't care less about that. DH is stubborn enough to not want to let her ever have her calf back, but I just want to put her calf on her and never touch her til fall when we butcher her. We know that if we put her out onto pasture, we will never catch her again to milk her, so we will have to keep her in the paddock and feed hay until we wean the two bottle calves and can butcher her. If it wasn't for her calf needing milk, I would dry her up now and butcher her right away - I have never had a cow make me upset before, and this one has me steaming mad every time I have to work with her. Can't be healthy for us!
There is no way I will put my little Dexter heifer onto her because I am afraid she will teach her some of her nasty habits. I am contemplating whether or not we should bring her in twice a day and let the calves simply nurse off her so we don't have to milk and then turn around and bottle feed , but DH is afraid the calves will nurse off the others in the fall when we run them all together. That is why we are bottle feeding now - so we don't have the issues with calves nursing when they are not supposed to. But I do plan on drying everybody up in December (too cold to run my machine here without a heated barn), so then there won't be anything for the calves to nurse on.
I laughed this morning when DH came in and said that he would rather milk 3 Dexters than 1 Tildy, because this morning Emma (the dexter who freshened a week ago) was standing at the gate mooing softly for him and she gave him 1.5 gallons! Not bad for a 600 lb runt
Ack, I need to stop typing about it as it is giving me a headache!
Guys, what do I do about her - DH went and laid down for 1/2 hour after milking because his blood pressure was sky high and he came in saying, "It's a good thing I only had a stick and not the 22 this morning or Tildy woudl be dead!"
Heather
Morning and evening we have to chase her to catch her (she has a lead rope attached, but knows to keep 11 feet away from us), she will run us over to get places so we have to carry our show stick to whack her if she tries it. Or else she stubbornly refuse to move while you pull her and if I try to get close to her HQ to give her a whack with the stick she will run backwards as fast as she can until she hits the electric fence and gets zapped.
Once in the barn she doesn't go into the headgate (and this after almost 4 weeks of milking), and while she knows she is in major trouble if she moves her hind legs, she will dance with her front feet and then smash around with her head giving us the evil eye. She eats the treats the whole time huffing and snorting, and it takes DH about 45 minutes just to catch and milk her morning and evening and while she was at 3.5 gallons for a while, she is down to 1.5-2 gallons now.
She's not in heat, has no mastitis issues, no health issues (vet did a full check *G*). . . . we just don't get it. The others come in to be milked immediately and are darlings about it. There are nights when DH has to tie Tildy to the bale ring all night to make sure he can milk her the next morning without a chase or he won't make it to work on time.
THe one day he had to go to work and he left without milking her thinking she'd be mooing by night time, but NO, she couldn't care less about that. DH is stubborn enough to not want to let her ever have her calf back, but I just want to put her calf on her and never touch her til fall when we butcher her. We know that if we put her out onto pasture, we will never catch her again to milk her, so we will have to keep her in the paddock and feed hay until we wean the two bottle calves and can butcher her. If it wasn't for her calf needing milk, I would dry her up now and butcher her right away - I have never had a cow make me upset before, and this one has me steaming mad every time I have to work with her. Can't be healthy for us!
There is no way I will put my little Dexter heifer onto her because I am afraid she will teach her some of her nasty habits. I am contemplating whether or not we should bring her in twice a day and let the calves simply nurse off her so we don't have to milk and then turn around and bottle feed , but DH is afraid the calves will nurse off the others in the fall when we run them all together. That is why we are bottle feeding now - so we don't have the issues with calves nursing when they are not supposed to. But I do plan on drying everybody up in December (too cold to run my machine here without a heated barn), so then there won't be anything for the calves to nurse on.
I laughed this morning when DH came in and said that he would rather milk 3 Dexters than 1 Tildy, because this morning Emma (the dexter who freshened a week ago) was standing at the gate mooing softly for him and she gave him 1.5 gallons! Not bad for a 600 lb runt
Ack, I need to stop typing about it as it is giving me a headache!
Guys, what do I do about her - DH went and laid down for 1/2 hour after milking because his blood pressure was sky high and he came in saying, "It's a good thing I only had a stick and not the 22 this morning or Tildy woudl be dead!"
Heather