When Cows are too good at their job....

[woodland]

I don’t mind horns. Although it would be nicer if the whole herd was horned, some of the polled girls are at a bit of a disadvantage.

That said, Stella is the herd matriarch despite being polled and 600lbs lighter than the Limo. She’s a year older and they grew up together and Stella just refuses to not be boss. Even if she loses a fight, in her mind she still wins. Very rarely is there even a fight. Odd how herd hierarchy can work. There’s no question, even though the two of them spend the entire winter not with the dairy girls, that they are the bosses.

I’ve read some papers on the balance horns give the animals (maybe it was biodynamic but for some reason I’m thinking no?). Kind of like reiki in people, if you dehorn an animal it upsets their chakras. It’s been a while but I think it was regarding milk production and how animals that kept their horns were more productive than their de horned counterparts? Something along those lines. Irrelevant in regards to polled breeds since they haven’t lost anything they had to begin with, but an interesting concept none the less. We know horns play a role in heating and cooling in large horned breeds, what else could they be doing. Lots of times I’ve heard the analogy of being dehorned like losing a finger. Well if I lost a finger I’d be a bit out of whack. I’ll see if I can find what I read again. Maybe it’s lost it’s shine over the years and sounds better in my memory!

Ummmm ............ all the steers here have lost a package of something............ I better ask them tomorrow if it has thrown their balance or “reiki” off. I’ll have to ask them what the latter is too.

I think they’ll be more concerned whether the feed truck is coming for them or not though👍

[Blaithin]

Ummmm ............ all the steers here have lost a package of something............ I better ask them tomorrow if it has thrown their balance or “reiki” off. I’ll have to ask them what the latter is too.

I think they’ll be more concerned whether the feed truck is coming for them or not though👍

Well that’s easy enough to hypothesize.

How do you think you would feel if you lost that package? 😂😂

[Blaithin]

One of the Flecks is due in the next week or two. Took advantage of some days off work to drive up to Ponoka dairyland today and pick up a calf. He’s a Jersey x Belgian Blue.

BBs are popular crosses over dairy in the UK so when I seen a dairy advertising them I thought it would be neat to try. The full BBs are ugly as shit but the crosses seem to be more normal looking.

He tested out the calf cab. Worked well! Couldn’t haul a much bigger calf though...

[Blaithin]

Looking like baby day today or tomorrow. Good calving weather for them to drop weeks apart 😂

[Blaithin]

Pretty heifer calf on the ground.



Heifers are getting close to calving. I hate heifers....

[Blaithin]

Well the heifers laughed in my face. Both spit out 80lb calves like they do it every week. Third heifer is a ways off still but not feeling nearly as much stress about her now!

[woodland]

👍
Nothing cuter than a roan calf running except it needs to be black😉

Beautiful calving weather compared to last year.
April 1 2020

Good luck everyone. A couple weeks till we start here. 🍀

[littledoggie]

Blaithin - those are nice calf weights for first time calvers! Good luck with the 3rd one.

[Blaithin]

She’s black, with roan 😜

Thanks littledoggie. I’m quite impressed with how easy they both calved considering what the calves taped. There was no diddling around from either of them. It was pretty much a water bag and out within half an hour. Some heifers are just painful with their stalling.

If all calved as easy as these two, I wouldn’t care so much about calving out heifers 😂

[Blaithin]

Last one for at least a month (that last, lagging, heifer)

I’m going to go out on a limb and say she got bred before she made it to the pasture with the Hereford bull 😂 Tall black heifer for her, and a Simmental steer to graft on.

[Blaithin]

I don’t have an edit button to add to that post 🤔

354 days between calves for her. The singles both landed at 365 days but the girl that raised 2 calves moved up. She has the best breed back out of any of my nurse cows.

[Blaithin]

Moved the fish to another trough this morning. The one they were in is the busy trough and I’m not convinced it would still have water in it when I get home from work! So I moved them to the one they shouldn’t die in.... 🤞🏻😂

They’re getting big. Have to be at least 3 or 4 years old now.

[shtferbrains]

Do they keep the green slime off in the summer?

[Blaithin]

Do they keep the green slime off in the summer?

Yes, they seem to keep a handle on it. On really warm days algae can still make an appearance. I may add a couple more fish this summer. 3 just might not have been able to eat that much algae!

They’re also very good at eating any mosquitoe larva that ends up in the water.

If you don’t want to deal with fish though, barley straw is supposed to help prevent algae.

[Blaithin]

One of the sets of calves from this year. These guys are 6 months old and easily over, 500 lbs. The photo is making me think they're over 600 so I'll have to do an eyeball to scale on something when I'm back over there! Baker (the cow) is working to pay off her feed bill for the winter.



The only issue I tend to run into with multiples is less than great breed back. Everyone is getting a blood draw preg check when they get back home, before weaning. Anyone open that can is going to get another calf to raise. For that matter a couple may get another calf anyway. A larger portion of their winter feed than normal is probably going to be grain so I won't want them to be dry too long.

Years like this make it even nicer to have two calves come in off one cow. If Baker weans off 1200+ lbs of calf she will more than pay for even expensive feed. She's going to help support the feed of the heifers who only have singles on them this year.