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Jun. 14, 2006
Adopt a calf
One of our cows that lost her calf might get to be a mama after all. Our older full-blood cow had her calf yesterday. This cow has a horrid udder (we bought her that way-knowing the trouble she'd cause, but she was CHEAP), and has not raised her own calf since we got her, and lost the one she had just before we bought her.
Anyway, she is a BEAR to work with (and a little dangerous because she is SO protective of her baby). Poor dh almost lost an arm and a couple of teeth trying to milk her one good quarter yesterday to get the calf some colostrum. Because she's had mastitis so many times earlier in her life, her udder gets VERY tender and she kicks anytime you (or a calf) get near it.
So, we decided to see if the cow that lost her calf on Memorial day still had milk. She is so docile, she'll just stand in the headgate and let you milk her, no problem. Well, she does, but not much.
So, the next task was to see if the calf would nurse from her (and if she'd allow it). Got the calf up to her, and NO PROBLEM! The calf has great instincts, and the cow stood quietly (restrained in the headgate still). The calf will be much better at stimulating her to come back into milk than we ever could.
So, we'll have to restrain her for a week probably as we work on getting the 2 of them to think of each other as mom and baby, but it'll be MUCH better than having to bottle the calf twice a day (and a calf always grows better with a mama than on artificial milk).
So, we'll see how it goes.
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