Bomb Proof Family Cow
ou’ve read those ads – Bomb Proof Horse, been there, done that. Well Jane is a bomb proof cow. I couldn’t ask for a better cow, she is putting up with all this messing around like a real champ. Not too kicky, at least nothing a block with a near arm doesn’t cure. About the only thing that gets her going are the dogs, (which are slowly being reintroduced back in the barn area) and she does swing around pretty fast if Blake decides to start bouncing around.
At the moment I am milking four times a day. Blake gets the side that is showing the mastitis and I get the other. In the photo above I am blocking Blake from my side. I’m sitting on my milking stool, and reaching between Jane’s legs to make sure Blake doesn’t sneak over to my side.
My schedule is shot with milking four times a day to say the least. But we’re seeing some improvement. You never know how a cow will actually act when you begin to milk, I couldn’t ask for a more even-tempered cow. All our routine training has paid off, she comes right to the stall to be milked since I have Blake hostage, and Jane is happy (well kind of) to leave her in the safety of the stall when she goes out to graze.
Blake – 2 days old.
Or a sweeter calf to have in the barn 
Food Renegade
Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op
Congrats on your beautiful new calf!
What a doll.
Don’t know how you blog & do this. A few questions I’d love to hear from you on when you have (ha, ha) some time:
- How will you feed Jane through her peak?
- How much is she giving (as soon as the colostrum clears) for the house?
- Is that pink nose not just the cutest?
And unrelated….
You mentioned a while back regarding pasture that an overabundance of clover means some imbalance is present. What is that imbalance in your area? And was it a specific clover (like White Dutch)?
Thanks, Nita!
Kristin, time? What’s that? My daughter makes it pretty easy to blog, she takes most of the photos, and approves the comments etc., when I’m not around, and she is a huge help with the cow and calf.
- Jane is on full pasture, in a strip grazing mode instead of rotational grazing, and she’s getting about a pound of COB with one Fresh-N-Easy pill per milking, plus molasses to make the FNE palatable. I’m switching to 3 times a day today, so I’ll up the grain a bit.
- I always start taking milk for the house at the 5th milking assuming a 2 x day schedule, so I did wait a bit even though the antibiotic has no withdrawal period. I’m going to 3 x day because she was producing 1 1/2 gallons per milking, that’s too much, I don’t want her producing that much milk!
- Gosh, all that pink is gone now and is just plain old Hereford pink
- White clover here means high magnesium, and iron and several other things, in addition to tight and compacted soils. I only see a preponderance of white clover in high traffic areas otherwise in the pastures it is just one of the plants, not too much, but some.
Ah, homeschooled kids are a boon to productivity when they are old enough. My eldest is nearly 13 and does significant work here. Still, I don’t feel like blogging anymore.
When you say “Strip grazing”, do you mean that you are giving her a new section of grazing daily while still having access to prior days (weeks, etc) grazing?
So about 4 lbs of grain daily right now. How long will you feed the Fresh-n-Easy? I gather palatability is comparable to the calcium gel tubes? I have a tub of Fresh-n-Easy to try this year. I could never get my cows to take the tubes….they just spit it out!
I’m in the Southeast and find clover to be excellent forage nearly year round. Most of the grasses (predominantly Fescues) are not palatable in the warm season. I do think the white clover I have are Alsike and not the wild (White Dutch) variety as they seem to grow very tall (12-16″) vs. the White Dutch I’ve planted on lawns. It also grows well in my better soils. I’ll have to see what I can find on mineral deficiencies here….I know Tennessee tends to be low in available Magnesium.
Thanks, as usual, for the helpful answers.
Kristin, yes, they are! Well and other kids can be too, I only have experience with a home schooled one
Yes, I mean she has access to come back to the gate for easy access for me – but I don’t really have here in field, just in garden headlands, or around the hayfield, and it’s working pretty well to swap her formerly grazed strips with the horse, so where she was 3 weeks ago, he is now grazing etc. It’s just too hard with the milking to graze her in true MiG fashion, and this way I don’t have to have elaborate lanes which usually just become sacrifice areas because of the continued high traffic. This makes less of an impact on potential grazing and keeps her close.
I’ve upped her to 5 pounds now, and usually I just top dress the FNE, but she won’t touch it, so I have added molasses, and now it all disappears as long as I stir it up real good. She’s the first cow I have had that wouldn’t touch it, and I don’t want to manhandle her with a balling gun, so molasses it is. The calcium paste is normally caustic, and awful hard to get down them. I’ll probably give it a few more days.
Year round clover, I’m jealous!
OMG!! That lil face…she is just tooo cute!! Looks like she’ll have to grow into that collar!! Was that her mamas??
I am going to ask this question with the fear of offending some, so please forgive me!! Blake is a beautiful calf, but she looks like a beef calf, did you breed Jane to a beef bull to put the calf in the freezer later? I have done this with my Dexters, mostly because my lines do not take to milking very well. I am thinking of cross breeding my more docile Dexter cow to sexed Jersey or Guernsey semen, hoping that I will get a more willing milk cow. Have you had any experience with this?
Lovely! You have such a great system, and glad to hear that the mastitis is improving and everything is going well. You must be so happy to have milk again. I just bought milk from the supermarket for the first time in a year, I can’t wait for Bella to calve! Do you have any tips for safely drying out a cow when the time comes? I hope we have done everything right…
Brilliant, what awesome shots.. good girl jane.. I am hoping to share milk Daisy as well… Jane has a beautiful udder.. daisy is bursting out all over, not pretty anymore she can barely walk., she must calve soon.. she and i hope… c
What an adorable mix of Guernsey and Hereford…
What a good girl Jane is! And what a pretty calf Blake is! Love the cute pink nose.
Out of curiosity, how did you decide to name Blake?
It’s been great watching Jane grow up and into motherhood.
Baby animals are just the cutest, and one of the joys of keeping livestock is that you get to enjoy so many of them.
Love, love his white face and brown ears – cutie pie and mama is a good mama too:)
So glad that Jane is doing so well. I hear you about your schedule! You are amazingly busy as it is, then add this in there! It feels like having a newborn. Hope things settle down soon for everyone.
Do you think the extra teat is in anyway related to the mastitis? I never liked having extra teats on a cow. Only had a couple of cows born that way and both had problems with mastitis. One with her first calving. Started off her milking career with mastitis and ended up only having 3 good quarters by her 2nd calving. This was despite careful care and treatment with antibiotics. Ended up sending her for beef really young.
Hope nothing like that happens to Jane and she clears up quickly and never has a relapse of mastitis. I loved having cows that lasted for years with few health issues. Makes life easy when the cows know the routine and it all runs like clockwork.
Sheila, I was just thinking last night that I was worried about the teat and it isn’t in the involved quarter anyway, I should have been looking elsewhere.
It is totally non-functioning, however a friend had a cow that had one that actually worked somewhat and gave milk, Jane’s is just like a skin tag so in her case it’s not an issue, but I could see where extra teats could be a problem. I have good hopes for Jane but starting out like this is not a good sign I hate to say. It means lots of management and tenterhooks for the rest of her life. 
Jane has done a wonderful job. Don’t you know her moma would be proud? Blake is adorable. I hope Jane gets over the mastitis soon. There is nothing cutier than a baby calf.
What everyone said. Adorable pink nose. Good on Jane! Rooting for you both…. Blake too, so all three!
Here’s praying that Jane doesn’t end up having mastitis every time she calves. I am constantly checking my Molly for any worrisome conditions. I am a bit of a hypochondriac when it comes to my girls. Blake is adorable, and it sounds like Jane is doing better! Yay!