Cows have miscarriages just like humans do. While it's not common, it does happen. Just like humans, it's not a good thing. However, one of our cows aborted the other day, and I was thrilled. A couple of posts ago, I blogged about a girl who was attacked by a bull. Thankfully, she's now home and recovering. Anywho, I wrote about trusting animals. Stubby is one of those cows that I don't trust. She's fat and mean. We have cows that are skittish and if you surprise them, they'll kick and run. Stubby (her real name is Anna, but she lost half her tail somehow and Anna is much too nice of a name for her) will kick and run without being surprised. In fact, she'll kick back when she knows you are there. She's not the kind of cow I want around my kids, or me for that matter. When I heard she aborted and weren't sure if she'd be bred back or not, I put in my two cents: Get rid or her. So good bye, Stubby! Unfortunately, she could milk for a good long time yet. When cows aren't bred back we keep milking them until they aren't giving much milk (about 20 lbs per milking is our cut off). Sometimes they can go for years. I'm not sure what our longest cow was, but I do know she milked for over 2 years before we got rid of her.
We had another strange thing happen on our farm yesterday. When Pat got up in the morning a cow had calved, which is not unusual. The unusual thing is that there were 2 calves and one had wandered out of the maternity barn and was causing quite a raucous with the late lactation cows. We aren't sure if the cow had twins or if 2 cows calved. In fact, we still aren't sure. The other cow that we suspect, was checked but either she calved of the calf is lying very low and can't be felt. Nobody was really sure what to do until I suggested milking her. Milking her will make her come into labor, if she hasn't calved already. If she has calved, not milking her will cause her to get mastitis and potentially kill her. I'm not really sure why I'm the only one to think of this. They gave her some medication that will induce labor this morning and if she hasn't calved by tonight, we'll start milking her and hope for the best.
1 comment:
Our dairy cows were pretty tame, but occasionally we would have a mean first-calf heifer. We would keep them for a few months, but if they were still kicking after that, they were sold.
I remember one really mean beef cow when I was a kid. We kept her for a few years, but Dad finally got rid of her after she ruined a gate. He has a zero tolerance policy with mean cows now because he can't run to the bale feeder as fast as he used to.
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