Post by eljay on Jan 11, 2012 7:52:38 GMT -5
...of milking a cow. We'd milked goats a few years and have had just about every animal you need to sing a good long version of "Old McDonald Had a Farm", (still do) but one year ago yesterday I walked out in the 10* morning to find the then wild Sweet Pea mooning over a dead calf. She wasn't supposed to be due until March. I can relive that day in my mind almost exactly at a moments notice. Running with the cold wet calf to the house and trying to revive it in vain by warming it in the tub all the while knowing darn well that there would be no miraculous recovery.
I had just made the commitment to attend daily Mass and this was to be the first day of the commitment. It was almost like a challenge not to go. We went. I left the dead calf in the tub and prayed that I would come home to a very messy house because of the resurrected calf. I didn't.
My heart didn't break really for myself, though I don't like to lose an animal. I really felt bad for Sweetsie. She kept going back to the place where he was born and making those heart breaking mama moos. I managed to get the wild child into the chicken coop, the only place small enough to contain her so we could work with her, by luring her in with the dead calf. We live in dairy country and I tried to find a bull calf I could graft on to her. There were none to be had. So, with no idea of how I was going to do it DD and I headed out to the chicken coop to milk our first cow.
Honestly I half expected to be attacked by those horns on our first attempt. But, she didn't. DD held her by the horns, which seemed to pretty well immobilize her and I milked from a standing position one handed using my arm and shoulder to block her leg from kicking me in the face. The first session was 10 minutes. I waited for the first time I got a couple of squirts with her relatively calm and quit. I am a big fan of successive approximation.
Knowing this cow, one year later, I think it was a gift from God that she lost that calf. She would have been so difficult to catch and handle. She would have bonded with and protected that calf and we would have been the enemy. With the calf gone she bonded with us. Now no steer dares to threaten us when Sweet Pea is around. This is a case of all's well that ends well. Of course, I didn't know that a year ago.....
Laura
I had just made the commitment to attend daily Mass and this was to be the first day of the commitment. It was almost like a challenge not to go. We went. I left the dead calf in the tub and prayed that I would come home to a very messy house because of the resurrected calf. I didn't.
My heart didn't break really for myself, though I don't like to lose an animal. I really felt bad for Sweetsie. She kept going back to the place where he was born and making those heart breaking mama moos. I managed to get the wild child into the chicken coop, the only place small enough to contain her so we could work with her, by luring her in with the dead calf. We live in dairy country and I tried to find a bull calf I could graft on to her. There were none to be had. So, with no idea of how I was going to do it DD and I headed out to the chicken coop to milk our first cow.
Honestly I half expected to be attacked by those horns on our first attempt. But, she didn't. DD held her by the horns, which seemed to pretty well immobilize her and I milked from a standing position one handed using my arm and shoulder to block her leg from kicking me in the face. The first session was 10 minutes. I waited for the first time I got a couple of squirts with her relatively calm and quit. I am a big fan of successive approximation.
Knowing this cow, one year later, I think it was a gift from God that she lost that calf. She would have been so difficult to catch and handle. She would have bonded with and protected that calf and we would have been the enemy. With the calf gone she bonded with us. Now no steer dares to threaten us when Sweet Pea is around. This is a case of all's well that ends well. Of course, I didn't know that a year ago.....
Laura