Bonnie and Max come home... FINALLY!

First, my daughter's Facebook message after seeing the doctor:
Just a quickie before my boss catches me on FB at work. :) We still don't know what they're going to do, surgically, and likely won't for a couple of weeks. MRI tomorrow, genetic testing being sent to lab today, and more test results to come. Pathology reports had some stuff we suspected, but a few good surprises, too. It's a 2 out of 3 as far as how aggressive it is, but it's fairly slow-growing. More updates to come. Shhhh! Here comes the boss!

We went to Phil's house to fetch Bonnie and Max back home, after more than a month away from us.  She seemed really glad to see me, and let me pet her nose through the fence.  She definitely lost weight while she was there, not because Phil doesn't feed his animals well, but because she was the runt of the herd and got pushed back from the hay quite a bit.  

  Home sweet home!  Don't worry, we'll get her back to her fighting weight.  She's the boss around here.  

Max, on the other hand, did not suffer any weight loss, but kept on growing as always.  Of course he did.  He had his mother's milk!

Jody and Max were SO happy to see one another, they immediately got into a head-butting contest, just like old times.

Babe was so glad to see Bonnie that she stayed this close to her for a long time, and they grazed side by side.

"I've missed you so much, Bonnie-the-Jersey-cow.  Please, never leave again!"

"I missed you too, girl friend; those cows over there were SO mean!"

Adventures in milking

As I mentioned in my last post, I am really getting sick and tired of Max, the calf, not taking more of Bonnie's milk.  I took it upon myself when he was nursing to get on the other side of the cow so he wasn't bothered by my presence, peek under her belly, and watch him nurse.  At one point I reached across under the cow and hid his favorite teat, a front one.  He keeps that one very well emptied, and only takes a little from the back quarters.  If I took away the front teat, he would move on to the back one on that side; however, I could tell that his nostrils were blocked by Bonnie's capacious udder when he was partaking of that back teat, making it a little difficult for him to breathe.  Not impossible, just slightly difficult.  So he's been choosing the easy route.
Hmmm; what to do, what to do.  
Since I've been having to milk every morning anyhow, I decided to put Max in the stall overnight.  That way I can milk from the cow's right side and he can have what's on her left.  I've done this with Bonnie's previous calves when I needed milk.  This plan, I thought, would help Stupid Max come to a realization that the milk in the back is every bit as good as the milk in the front, and maybe he'll soon become an equal opportunity sucker.  
I awoke this morning to a bovine chorus which, loosely translated, is this:  "Mommy, I'm dying of starvation!"  "My baby, my baby, I want to feed you and I can't get in there with you!"  All this repeated ad nauseam, resonating clearly through my open bedroom window.  
I got out of bed, quickly drank a cup of coffee, grabbed my bucket, and went to the barn.  
It was no trick getting Bonnie in the barn and in her stanchion; after all, there's food there.  Once I had her secured I went out and slid the stall door open, turning Max loose.  Now all he had to do was take two or three steps, see his mother through the open door of the barn, join her, and latch on.  
He did step through once, but promptly left, bawling his head off.
This made Bonnie nervous, and she stomped around some and mooed an answer to her baby.  He answered back, but didn't come near the open door.  
When a cow gets nervous, she poops and pees.  A lot, and often.  So there I was snatching my bucket up and dodging excrement and urine every minute or so, pitchforking out the manure so I didn't have to have my bare feet in it as I milked, and resuming the milking procedure when the coast seemed clear.  A couple of times I set the bucket on a stool and went out to try and guide the calf into the barn with his mother, to no avail.  Finally, when I was almost done milking the two teats on my side, Max entered and I shut the door so he couldn't leave.  And at long last, he discovered the breakfast bar.  
I noticed that when he's really hungry, he doesn't care which teat he sucks on.  
I'll repeat this whole procedure every morning until Max starts emptying the cow's udder on his own.  I plan to make cheese with the two gallons of milk I brought in today.  Last time I attempted making cheddar cheese, it turned out to be crumbly, similar to feta cheese.  It's delicious, and we're using it in salads.  I hope my efforts this time actually produce something like cheddar, but I won't be unhappy with more feta-type cheese.  
Oh , due to the fact that I was outside before daylight, I heard something I had not heard in ages:  Coyotes were howling!  In the old days when I milked several cows and bottle-fed calves twice a day, I often did the chores in the predawn hours, and most mornings I'd hear coyotes yipping and howling.  I had forgotten how they raise cain when they hear a train whistle.

I'm a cattle baroness.

Jody, on the left, is almost four months old.  She's been weaned awhile and is eating lots of grain.  The halter is on her because I am teaching her to lead.  Actually, she seems to have been born knowing how to lead.  Most calves, when you start trying to get them to follow you, will balk and refuse to move; some will even "sull up" as Cliff calls it, and fall on the ground with their eyes rolled back in their heads looking dead as a doornail.  (Strange expression, that.)
But Jody only put up a struggle the first time I had a rope on her; since then, she has followed me anywhere I lead her.  She does think it's fun to butt me, but I smack her with the end of the rope when she does that; she'll learn.  Once the fly season is over, we'll have the vet out to remove her horns, vaccinate her for whatever he thinks is wise, and remove an extra teat.  Yes, she has five.  It likely wouldn't produce anything, but I want it gone.  
I bought Jody because Bonnie, the cow in the background, refuses to give me a heifer calf.  
Bonnie was perfect when we bought her, but at this point she is battle-scarred:  Last year she got mastitis in two quarters, and one of those quarters quit producing entirely.  This year the other quarter with mastitis is, for now, giving good milk.  But once a cow has had mastitis in a quarter, you can bet it will show up again at some point.  Bonnie also has a displaced hip, which causes her to limp somewhat.  This problem was caused either by giving birth to those gigantic calves she always has, or else by one of those huge bulls she has to support when she's being bred.  Anyhow, she's had this slight limp for at least two years.  Cliff hadn't noticed it until I called his attention to it this year.   
Because so many things can go wrong with a milk cow, I wanted a backup, so I bought Jody.  She isn't pure Jersey, but she'll do in a pinch.  
Right now Bonnie is keeping us tied down at home because her calf still isn't able to take all her milk.  So I'm milking every morning.  Hope is in sight, though; today I got less milk than I have been bringing in (or pouring out).  Max's appetite must be increasing.

Adventure in the evening

Cliff and I went to the State Fair today.  That's a story in itself.  But after we got home and rested awhile, I figured I'd better go check on Bonnie and her baby, since this was their first day out in the big pasture together.  As soon as I stepped outside I knew something was amiss, because there was Bonnie, without her calf, bawling her head off at me.  I knew instantly that little Max had fallen into one of our many deep ravines.  
Bonnie led me to the edge of a canyon (who said cows are stupid?) and started bellowing insistently.  I heard her calf answer her from the pit.  
I went to the other side of the gully where it isn't so steep, so I could assess the situation.  Going down that steep slope I reminded myself that I have an artificial knee, and I hung onto brush and tree-roots for support.  Finally I spotted the calf and knew there was no choice but to go get Cliff.  

Yeah, I wasn't scaling THAT wall.  I thought maybe Cliff could fashion some sort of sling out of an old blanket, put it around the calf's belly, and drag him out with a tractor.  

Cliff followed me back to the ditch and pondered the mess.  


He then decided that a sling wasn't the best idea.  He said if we drove the calf back down the ditch a little way, we could probably help him climb up the slope where it wasn't straight up and down.

  Bonnie the Jersey cow cheered us on from above, peering over the cliff and bellowing so loud and often, we couldn't think.  


Cliff got the calf headed up that steep, slippery incline.  At one point he (Cliff) couldn't get his footing, so he grabbed Max's tail with both hands and poor little Max pulled him the rest of the way up the hill, right through some thorn-bushes.  

All's well that ends well.

Why only bull calves?

A reader left a comment in which she wondered why Bonnie only has boys.  Well, it's just like with humans:  Each time a female is impregnated, there is a 50/50 chance the baby will be a boy.  This has nothing to do with what sex their previous babies were, it's just the luck of the draw and the chance is the same every time... 50/50.
What Cliff and I can't figure out is why a Jersey cow, one of the smallest breeds of cattle, has such huge babies every single time.  The last two times we would probably blame it on the breed of the bull she was mated with, but her first calf was pure, 100% Jersey.  And he was huge, even though he was out of a first-calf heifer.  A heifer's first calf is usually somewhat smaller than average.  
Oh well, I guess it's OK as long as Bonnie lives to tell about it.  

By the way, Max found where lunch is served.  Don't worry about Bonnie's distressed appearance; she still hasn't gotten rid of the afterbirth, which is why her back is arched like that.

Meet Max

When I saw the big hooves, I knew it was another boy.

Cliff agrees with me that the calf weighs at least 80 pounds.  This is her third calf, and they've all been huge boys.