Secret

That's my Jersey heifer, Secret. She's two months old, and I've been feeding her milk replacer from a bucket. I'm getting ready to wean her. I had been giving her "formula" twice a day, but last night she had to do without. I'll keep giving her some morning milk until this bag of milk replacer is gone, and then, assuming she's eating plenty of calf starter (grain), she'll be officially weaned.

Somehow, before I bought Secret, her ears had been frost-bitten, so she actually lost the ends of them within a couple weeks of our buying her. The damage was barely discernable the day we picked her up, and we didn't notice it until we got her home. I was disappointed, to say the least. Jerseys have a lovely, sweet face. Their ears are part of their beauty, and I had no way of knowing for sure just how much of her ears she'd lose.

I've seen cows go through sale barns with absolutely no ears (or tail), as a result of being born in zero weather. So I'm glad Secret kept over half of hers.

The former owners didn't know about the ears; the damage was barely evident when we picked her up, at the age of three weeks. I thought about contacting them, but we knew these were good people who wouldn't deliberately sell us a defective calf. In fact, when the lady found out about it last week, she offered to give us our money and take Secret back. And even reimburse us for whatever we had spent on milk replacer.

But I was already attached to the calf. Besides, it's next to impossible to find somebody who will sell you a baby Jersey.

And I'm used to the short ears now.