A conversation with cows (in which I wax poetic)

"LEISURE"

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

By Wm. Henry Davies.

(Wm. Henry Davies (1871-1940) considered as the poet of the tramps).

See? I'm back, sooner than I expected.

I never saw a purple cow....

Cliff's taking advantage of this lovely day by giving our gates a coat of Ford (tractor) blue. Oldest grandson looks on (he hasn't had much work lately, he's job-hunting again).

Turns out Secret likes the taste of blue paint.

Finally, Cliff asked me to tie her up until the paint could dry.

She didn't seem to mind; in fact, she laid down and relaxed.

You don't often see a cow wearing makeup. Maybe if she had tried this look before, she might have gotten pregnant.

Sadie is checking out the tulips.

Secret's "friend"?

Cliff and I went to the trouble of buying a steer for Secret when she was small, so she'd have another cow as a friend. Honestly, she never got that attached to him, although he was quite attached to her. She hardly seems to miss him, now that he's in the deep freeze.

I've been noticing, though, that she has developed an attachment to an empty black rubber tub that's in her pen.

I first realized this when I started turning her out to eat grass; when she'd come back up to let me know she wanted in her pen, I'd open the gate for her. She didn't go directly to her hay, as I thought she would: she'd go straight to a tub that used to hold cattle mineral. We've never bought such mineral, so I don't know where the thing came from or who gave it to us. We were using it as a water container, but Secret kept turning it over and spilling the water, so we gave up on that.

Today I took a video of her going into her pen after grazing all day long. Forgive the shaky footage; it's hard to make a movie at the same time you're opening and closing a gate. This is Secret's best friend; she even makes little lowing noises like the sounds a cow makes to her new calf.

It wasn't enough that I'm stuck with a dog that's nutty as a fruitcake. Now I have a cow that's attached to an inanimate object.

It's a lovely day in the neighborhood

Radishes are up!

Lettuce is up!

And the daughter's attitude is up because she has herself a "new" car.

I've been tilling and planting and checking the trees for buds.

I've come to a decision about my Jersey, Secret. This was suggested by Kelly from Georgia a long time back, and I never gave it any consideration. Yesterday, though, I got to mulling it over and realized Kelly might be have something.

I can't say whether the heifer is bred or not, but I originally bought her because I missed having a Jersey cow on the place, and I wanted to raise one on the bottle as a pet. I didn't really plan to milk her, once she had a calf. At least not any longer than I had to. I'm not a farmer; it would shock me to death if I ever had an animal that made me money these days. Come on, I have a HORSE, for heaven's sake. And a mongrel dog.

So if she isn't bred (I don't know yet if she is or isn't), what's the problem with my simply keeping her around as a pet? I can't think of a single reason. It'll be a little noisy every three weeks for a day or so, when she comes in heat; but otherwise she should be no problem.

Now that's a decision that ought to make anybody happy!

Secret came home today

I'll be honest and tell you that I have very little hope that she's bred. She's been with three bulls now, and my past experience tells me that bulls aren't shy. Typical male, you might say.



I've raised Secret from the time she was ten days old. I know she isn't a freemartin, because she does come in heat. But for some reason she hasn't become pregnant.

No real farmer would have given her as many chances as we have, but we're not real farmers. I really love this heifer. Still, she's neither my child nor my dog, and she can't stay if she can't have a baby. It's called "cutting your losses".

I've been through this sort of thing before. So if Secret comes in heat again, she goes to the sale barn where somebody can take his chances on her. I'll eventually buy a Jersey cow that's either bred, or has a calf by her side.

About that Jersey cow

Yeah, this one. She's sold. But the man conveniently has lots of other heifers in various stages of pregnancy.

No thanks. Let me bring Secret home first and see if she's settled. We'll likely go get her in the next three days.

If she isn't pregnant, then we'll talk.

By the way, Meatloaf is history. Just so you know.

cutting losses

I know my regular readers have been following the saga of Secret, the heifer that has been so difficult to get pregnant.

I hope she "took" this time, but experience tells me she probably didn't. Let's face it, folks: she's been pastured with three different bulls now.

That's life on the farm. You learn to cut your losses. In fact, Secret has had a lot more chances than most animals around here, because I've gotten soft in my old age.

I know some of my readers were disappointed when I sold Libby, my little filly. But I've learned to face reality. The time came when I had to admit that I didn't have the nerve or money, or whatever it took, to finish her out.

I will say, Libby left here a much better little horse than when she came. I'm proud of that.

With dogs and cats, it's different. They don't have to be perfect, as long as we humans can put up with their faults. With farm animals, though, there comes a time when you realize you're pouring money into a losing proposition.

I do hope my readers understand if Secret has to go. I probably won't blog about it if she leaves.

However, if it's good news, I'll shout it from the rooftops.

Otherwise, just watch for the next Jersey cow to enter, stage left.

The livestock around here

A long-time AOL friend emailed me this morning asking about Libby.

Libby's been gone a long time, Jo. You must have missed this entry. I did love Libby, but I realized I had neither the energy or the know-how to start from scratch breaking a horse, nor the money to get her to a professional. After realizing yesterday how fat Blue is without my even noticing the weight-gain, I'm questioning whether I deserve one horse! (Don't worry, Blue isn't going anywhere.)

Jo also asked about Meatloaf and Secret. I've deliberately been quiet about those two, because some city folks get upset about the fact that animals have to disappear... either to be butchered or to be sold. Meatloaf is living on borrowed time: He's only here because it hasn't been convenient to get him loaded and take him to the butcher shop.

Secret has been at Cliff's brother's place with a bull, getting her sixth or seventh chance to get pregnant... I've stopped counting. If nothing happens this time, we'll likely just cut our losses and take her to the sale barn, where she won't bring much, because cattle prices are down. But my freezer won't hold the meat from two animals, even small animals.

Will I ever have a Jersey cow again? Very possibly, yes; but I may buy a grown one, either bred or with a calf by her side. Time will tell.

Blue is going to have to reside in a pen alone, since out of three horses that live here, he's the only one who insists on overeating. I'll probably start letting him out for an hour or so a day, maybe twice a day, so he can play with his equine friends. But I've put off the inevitable for too long. He really can't be allowed to eat as much as he likes.

When I first got him, I thought he had foundered (because of his fat neck) and kept him on dry-lot for over a year. That worked just dandy, and would still be the ideal situation for him; unfortunately, that particular dry lot is now our front yard... more or less. I turned Blue out onto grass after both the vet and the farrier assured me he'd never had laminitis. There have been several times I've kept him stalled for his own good, but never for long.

I hope this entry doesn't set off a flurry of comments asking about founder again. To see more about my experiences with founder, click HERE.

Welcome home, Secret

I certainly hope she got into some hanky-panky while she was away. Her old buddy, Meatloaf the steer, was glad to have her back.

About my Jersey heifer, Secret

Diane asked, in my comment section the other day, if there was any update on Secret's love life.

Actually, no. She's been at Tommy's place for two weeks. She was there during the vital time when she needed to be in the company of a bull. But Tommy goes to work in the dark and comes home in the dark, so if anything happened, he wouldn't know.

We'll bring her home this weekend. The next couple of weeks will tell the tale. If Secret comes in heat, she will soon be hamburger, because she's had every opportunity to become pregnant.

My readers will be the first ones to know if there's good news.

Secret's last chance

We took Secret for a little romantic vacation with a Scottish Highland bull. She's due to come in heat sometime between this coming Wednesday and next Sunday (18 to 21 days). This little bull has never had opportunity to breed a cow, so here's hoping he figures it out (he will). And here's hoping Secret doesn't have some reproductive problem to keep her from getting pregnant. If she does, we'll be eating Secret-burgers before long. Usually when you let a new cow in with a cattle herd, they'll swarm over to meet the newcomer, smelling her behind, jumping on her as if she were in heat, and sparring a bit with their horns, if they have them, to establish pecking order. So Cliff and I were surprised to see that all Tommy's cattle, including the bull, were scared silly of Secret! I wish I'd have been able to get a video, but they were quite a distance away. Remember to click on any picture if you want to see it larger.

They kept a healthy distance from her.

That's a steer on the left and the bull on the right. Tommy has his heifers separated from the bull at present. Notice the pretty autumn colors in the background.


Wouldn't you know, the steer is more interested in Secret than the bull is?


So Secret went over to the fence to make friends with some heifers. Girl talk, you know. Someone gave Tommy's son some chickens, so Tommy's building a chicken house. He said he's using stuff he had on hands already, so he only has $40 worth of material in it.


We advised him to make access to the nests from outside, so his boy won't have to crawl in chicken-poop to gather eggs. He agreed that would be a wise move. Wish Secret luck on this little honeymoon!

cow-breeding problems

I took this picture Sunday of Secret and Meatloaf. He's standing behind her like that because she was in heat. You long-time readers from the old AOL site thought she was bred, right?

Meatloaf is a steer, which means he can't breed her. However, he's good at detecting when she's in heat, and that lets us know when to call the artificial breeder.

Well, the man has been here three times without success. Twice, the timing wasn't really perfect because the guy works a regular job, and we did the best we could.

Another thing that has delayed this whole process is that Meatloaf was a fugitive for a couple of months, and although Secret let us know she was in heat by her bellowing and fence-running, it's really hard to get the timing right without another bovine here to let us know when she's in "standing heat". So we didn't even attempt to have her bred during that time.

Last time, though, she was ready to be serviced on a Sunday, three weeks ago. The breeder-man doesn't work at his job on Sundays so he could come at the proper time, and the timing was what I'd consider perfect. I told him that if she didn't settle (see #29 HERE for the meaning of "settle"), we'd do something different. Like sell her, make hamburger of her (yes folks, I could eat her with no problem, but I'd rather not), or try to find a suitable bull, because there's a better success rate with a real, live bull. As an old dairyman once told me, "Of course bulls have better success; they have all the time and semen in the world."

I apologize to all the city slickers for these boring details, but I've had readers ask what happened to Secret, wondering how she's getting along.

Imagine our disappointment when she let us know she wasn't bred this past Sunday.

There's no Jersey bull available. There is one Angus bull to which we have access, but he's huge, and I'm afraid that even if Secret could hold his weight up for breeding, the resulting calf might be too large for her to safely deliver.


We have a friend with a small herd of Scottish Highland cattle. (Click on the picture to get a closer look.)

They have shaggy coats and long horns. They are even smaller than Jerseys, I believe.

Next weekend we'll take Secret there for a two-week visit; this way she can get acquainted with her new boy friend ahead of time. Heaven forbid she should cheapen herself by having a one-night stand.

If she indeed does get pregnant, at least the resulting calf should be very interesting to look at.

Cows come in heat every three weeks, so it will be awhile before we know the results. I'll keep you informed when we know something.

This entry would have been on AOL....

AOL isn't allowing pictures to be posted on journals. It was for just such misbehavior on their part that I started this blog, and at this rate I'll eventually be doing all my blogging here.

We have a wonderful nephew who lives in Peculiar, Mo. He came visiting Saturday for the specific reason of helping us. He'd called Cliff a few days earlier and told him he and Trevor, his son, would be here. Above, he's helping Cliff put a new shelf in my laundry room.

However, when we woke up Saturday morning to pouring-down rain, Cliff said, "Scotty won't be coming in weather like this." So around 11 A.M., we headed to Bates City Barbecue for lunch. As we were finishing our meal, we got a call and found out Scotty and Trevor were at the house waiting for us. Darn it! We should have checked in with him before we left; we would have loved to have bought their dinner.

A side note: The reason for Bates City Barbecue was that every local TV station was featuring Memorial Day barbecue marathons. That planted a seed in our minds and appetites. We're that way, easily influenced by the power of suggestion.

This is Scotty's Rhino. It became our limo for the day, and saved Cliff at least 50,000 steps. Trevor acted as our cabbie, running us from the trailer to the old house.

In between trips, Trevor entertained himself with some sort of video game. This boy is such a gentleman, and so grown-up to visit with. He is a chip off the old block, and we love him. Sadie relaxed at his feet.

It wasn't all work: The three guys took the Rhino up and down our steep banks, just to see what it could do. Cliff was very impressed. Oh, they also found out our two calves had crossed the fence to visit a neighbor's herd. Local mushroom hunters (not the usual suspects... most likely boys we know who should have known better) had tied up the barbed wire fence to access our property more easily and left it tied up so that all the cattle had to do was stroll through.

It was easy to get Secret home, since she's halter-broke. However, her buddy, Meatloaf, isn't that tame. He's still with the neighbors cows. I suppose I'll eventually call them, but we have so many things going on, we're inclined to let him stay. No great loss. And Secret really doesn't seem to miss him that much.

Anyway. Scotty and Trevor spent the whole day here, and all they got was peanut butter for lunch and cheeseburgers and hot dogs for supper. I'll make it up to them one of these days.

Secret may be pregnant

My Jersey Heifer, Secret, started coming into heat regularly before she was six months old. Ideally, you want a cow to have her first calf at about two years of age. Cattle, like humans, carry their babies in utero for nine months. Since Secret was born in February, the time had come to get the deed done.

Trouble is, she's been very sneaky about her heat periods in the past two months; we've been unable to catch her in action. So Cliff gave her a shot Thursday that causes a cow to come in heat within three days. It worked like a charm, and today she was in the mood for romance.

We don't own a bull. We have always used artificial insemination for any Jersey cows we've owned. I had to call a couple of local veterinarians to locate a breeder, but I found success. He came today.

What do you suppose Secret is thinking? Something like, "I asked for a bull, I get this man with the big hand?"

Hopefully she "took" on the first try. Usually, they do.

That's the tiny "straw" that contained the little swimmers. Would you like to see the bull who contributed said swimmers?

Tada!!! Meet Sunset Canyon Maximus, the daddy of my next calf.

Secret's new game

Sometimes my heifer, Secret, makes me just scratch my head and wonder, "Why do they do what they do?"

That washtub sits out by the garden because we use it to cover the tiller when it isn't in use. For some reason, Secret has decided it's great fun to butt heads with a tub. She was standing like this for two or three minutes, but when I got too close she stopped, and just looked at me as if to say, "What, you never saw a cow fight with a tub?"

Someone recently asked why I named her Secret. As I recall, I was doing an AOL journal entry. I had decided to buy a Jersey heifer calf, but I wanted to wait until I actually had her home to tell my readers about her. So I wrote, "I've got a secret."

After a couple of days, I decided "Secret" would make a unique name for her. Besides, as long as I have her around, I can always say, "I've got a Secret!"

Getting Secret ready to milk

No, Secret won't be milked until she has a calf, and she'll be at least two years old for that event. However, next month I'll be calling the artificial insemination man to come and impregnate my heifer, and I need to be able to get her inside the barn and in a stanchion.


Since she's a chow hound, it wasn't hard to get her in the barn. I simply shook the feed can at her.
I haven't milked for fifteen years, so Cliff has been using my milking area for storage. I cleared the area in front of the stanchion and tried to lure Secret in... after putting a halter on her. Meat Loaf, the miniature Dexture, didn't want to come in. That's good, because I didn't want him in.
Secret had forgotten how to lead, but she didn't do too badly, all things considered. Cliff looks awfully busy, but I want a picture of me with Secret. Do you think he'll mind?
Oh Cliff? Cliff!!!! (He's repainting a trailer.)

Obviously, Secret's getting pretty fed up with all this handling.
Ummm, Secret? Look at the camera.
Much better.
Meat Loaf is just glad to have his buddy back; he bellowed the whole time I had her out of their pen.

Blue, Sassy, Libby and Tude are not impressed.

"When are you going to break her to ride?" Libby wonders.


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Now playing: Kasey Chambers - A Million Tears
via FoxyTunes

To breed a heifer

I'm adding this in March of 2010 for all of you who end up here by typing "When to breed a heifer" into Google.  The answer is at age fifteen months, so they'll calve at age two.  By the way, the heifer I was talking about in this entry turned out to be sterile, although she cycled just fine.  We hauled her to the sale barn.  I now have a lovely little registered Jersey cow that I milk whenever I feel like it, and let her calf take care of the milk the rest of the time.

Back when I had a herd of registered Jersey cattle, I didn't keep a bull around for breeding purposes. Jersey bulls are famous for being nasty, mean, and downright dangerous. So I would call a man who would come and artificially inseminate my ladies.

I don't recall what the price was, but it was a wonderful way to keep my herd procreating. Sometimes a cow wouldn't settle (become pregnant) on the AI man's first attempt; he'd come back and try again, charging this time for only his trip, not the semen. After three attempts, I had to pay, once again, for the semen. However, about two times out of three, the cow would settle the first breeding. A side benefit of this practice was that my little unknown, nobody cows were bred to the finest Jersey bulls in the country that were worth thousands of dollars.

A cow comes in heat every three weeks. The first hint you get is that she'll bellow and walk the fence. Other cows will try to mount her like a bull would, but she won't allow it for twelve to twenty-four hours. When she does stand for other cows to mount her, that's called "standing heat". When this happens, you count twelve to twenty-four more hours and then call the A.I. technician.

When we started learning all this, I was always in a hurry to call the breeder-man. The cow seemed so desperate, after all. Almost as though she were in pain. I only wanted to give her some relief, put her out of her misery. So our old cow didn't get bred the first couple of times I called, until the old A.I. man explained the timing to me.

Where am I going with all this? Well, my heifer, Secret, is a year old. In May she'll be old enough to breed. I called a local veterinary and got the name of an ABS breeder who lives not far from here. But when I called and talked to his wife, she informed me that he doesn't keep semen of "the rare breeds". I told her I'd be willing to buy five straws of semen for him to store for me in his (you have to buy in lots of five), and she said he'd call back. He never did.

Semen, by the way, is stored in liquid nitrogen tanks where it remains viable for years. To read about the history of artificial insemination, click HERE.

I've gotten in touch with the people from whom I bought Secret; they have a bull, but don't sound too enthusiastic about letting us use him. And I hate to beg.

Cliff's brother has an Angus bull, so if all else fails, that's where I'll take my heifer. Then she'll have a nondescript, small-boned black calf. A mongrel.

But I sure would like to get a cute little Jersey calf from her.

Secret was born during a very cold time last February, so the tips of her ears and the tip of her tail froze. It makes her look a little strange, I'll admit.



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Now playing: Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Mean Mama Blues
via FoxyTunes

I've always loved cows

After Cliff and I bought our first place, a small house on twenty acres south of Oak Grove, my parents offered to sell us a milk cow. I'm not sure of her breed, although I'm guessing mostly Guernsey. Her name was Suzie. I had never been able to figure out how to get milk out of a cow, and when we bought her I told Cliff, "You'll have to milk her, because I can't."

Within two weeks, I was milking that cow and loving it. Suzie was a character, a real family pet. That's Cliff's sister sitting on her.

We visited the Missouri State Fair one year. Walking through the dairy barn, I noticed the most beautiful cows I'd ever seen in my life. Until then, I hadn't realized how tiny Jerseys can be, and of course these were groomed for show, all sleek and clean (and did I mention tiny?). I had to have one.

It was like eating potato chips: I couldn't stop at one! I'd call the ABS Breeder guy and he'd artificially inseminate my cows with registered Jersey semen, and before you knew it we had a half-dozen registered Jersey cows.

My dream was to have a dairy, but I never actually took the plunge into that enterprise. I may as well have; we were tied down to milking twice a day every day, 365 days a year.

I had several milk customers, people who preferred raw milk with thick cream rising to the top rather than store-bought, pasteurized-homogenized stuff. Still, I had quite a surplus. One Jersey can give six or more gallons a day.

We bought "bobby" calves and bottle-fed them. We bought pigs and fed them milk mixed with wheat shorts for slop. (That's the grandson who is now 22 years old; our clothes make a real fashion statement, don't they?)

I churned butter and made cottage cheese, and ice cream by the gallon, and we drank all the milk we could hold.

My herd expanded, then grew smaller, as it became difficult to find bobby calves to raise and as they became increasingly expensive.

I think it was around 1991 that I tearfully sold my last couple of dairy cows. We were free to go places then, and spend a night or a week away from home. I loved the freedom. I missed my Jerseys.

Last February, after all those cow-less years, I could stand it no longer. I bought a Jersey calf and named her Secret.


I'm hoping to find a way to get out of milking twice a day. I intend to let her calf stay with her; as it grows bigger, a calf can actually take all that milk without getting sick. There may be a month or two when I'll have to milk to relieve Secret's full udder. Cliff and I only use about a half-gallon of milk a week, so we certainly don't need to milk a cow.

I'll worry about it when the time comes; she won't even be old enough to breed until May.

Here's a self-portrait taken last summer.

Notice I'm not wearing shoes in any of these pictures? I've hated shoes all my life. Nowadays, though, thanks to plantar fasciitis and arthritic toes, I have to wear the dad-blamed things... with expensive prescription inserts added.

I think my Jersey calf is a blond

We bought a Jersey heifer calf last February because I've missed Jerseys ever since I sold my last one, years ago. Secret was born during the worst cold snap of the winter, and it wasn't until we'd had her for a couple of days that we realized she was going to lose the ends of her ears. Later on, we noticed that the freeze had also taken her "fly swatter", the switch part of her tail.

A few months ago I decided Secret needed some bovine companionship, so we bought a Dexter bull (Dexters are a miniature breed) and made him a steer. They bonded quite nicely. We plan to get Secret bred to a Jersey bull sometime next spring, and after she has a calf for companionship, we'll butcher the Dexter, whom we named Meatloaf.

I've noticed lately that in all situations that require intelligence or problem-solving of any kind, my prize heifer flunks the test, while Meatloaf aces it.

I've made a video that gives an example of this. Please forgive me for the terrible quality of the little movie; I was trying to take it while carrying a can of feed in one hand, often backing up, and limping pretty much constantly from a bum knee which I'm scheduled to have operated on in December. (Arthroscopy, not replacement.) So you'll be seeing the ground a lot. Not to mention the horrible wind noise most of the time; you might want to turn your sound off. Apologies done, here's the video:

Creamed peas and new potatoes

My mom and all her family knew how to make vegetables fattening... and delicious! Mother put cream on turnips, carrots, and peas; she wasn't above sneaking a little sugar in those, either. Every year in June, the peas in the garden would be ready for picking, and we'd have creamed peas and new potatoes.

Cliff only planted a small row of peas in his experimental garden... "Just enough for a mess or two," he said. The rabbits did damage to some of the plants, but today I found enough for a couple of meals for me and Cliff. I told him to pull up a couple of potato plants and get our other vital ingredient, new potatoes.

Now my mom used real cream, taken from the top of a jar of un-homogenized milk, for the cream sauce on veggies. We only use cream on special occasions here, since Cliff's heart surgery, so I used low-fat milk and thickened it a little with corn starch. I did, however, add a tablespoon of real butter so we'd taste a little bit of fat.

My four-month-old Jersey heifer is waiting in the wings, and in eighteen months or so, she'll be providing us with real, honest-to-goodness cream so thick it heaps up on the spoon if you dip into it. We'll still only use it occasionally and with discretion. See her future udder?



I had a cup-and-a-half of cooked chicken I needed to use, so I also made chicken gumbo. That's store-bought frozen okra, by the way.

I suggested to Cliff he plant a few okra plants. He'll love watching them grow!