6.26.22
Lass is a phenomenal cow. She really is! There has been more than one occasion in the 10 plus years we have owned her, where I have milked her for well over the normal 10 months one usually milks a family milk cow during her lactation cycle. The previous times were due to her taking her own sweet time in breeding back and even after her calf was weaned, producing too much milk to suddenly stop milking her. As a rule, a family milk cow will not produce nearly as much milk per day as a cow in a commercial dairy herd. Lass routinely has given me a good 5 gallons or more and that is with milking only once a day! I have always kept their calf on them to take up the slack should we need to be gone for a day or ambulance duty calls right at milking time. When I want milk for the house or my customers, I pen the calf up overnight, so Lass or Heidi have a nice full udder for me the following morning, then the calves spend the entire day running with mum and drinking all the milk she continues to produce. It is a system that has worked great for me for the past 30 or so years we have had a family milk cow.
Now Lass, being the 13 years of age that she is, like a lot of dairy cows, sometimes can be hard to breed back after calving. Lass has had her fair share of challenges in this respect, and we almost gave up on her breeding again after a really rough time a couple of years ago. Those of you familiar with my Sunday Stories may recall my writing about the incident and eventual happy ending with the adoption of Willow. For those new to my stories, here is a brief recap…
When Lass was a few weeks away from calving, she cast herself – lay down too close to a feeder and could not get up. We had been away from home for a day and returned to find her down and showing all signs of having milk fever, a condition that usually occurs after a cow has calved and can be rapidly fatal if not quickly treated. Thankfully, we were able to get the much needed calcium-magnesium fluid into her via an I.V. line but it was not enough, she needed more. Darrell jumped in the truck and headed to John Day to pick extra bottles up from our vet – a 120-mile round trip. While he was on that mission, Lass began to go into labour. However, the calf was stuck, her head and one leg turned backwards thus preventing a normal, easy delivery which meant I had to assist by repositioning the calf before pulling it out as Lass strained away. Darrell arrived home just as the calf was successfully birthed, Lass got more of the Cal-Mag and was soon on her feet, tending her newborn baby. Sadly however, the wee calf, born prematurely, did not survive. We quickly found a surrogate baby and after skinning Lass’s dead calf and tying the hide on the surrogate, Lass adopted Willow as her own. There is a lot more to this particular story by the way, but this puts you in the picture for today’s tale!
Now back to present day…
After that last ordeal, it took Lass a long time to breed back and we actually thought she might not. However, Henry, our Hereford bull, dutifully took care of matters and a year ago in April, Lass gave us a grand calf, birthing him with ease. As a rule, I normally keep our milk cow’s calf nursing on them for about nine months before weaning, a couple of months longer than we usually have the beef calves on their mums. The reason being one of mere convenience for me. I milk only once a day and occasionally need to forego milking thus keep calf with mum so he or she can take care of the daily milking chore when I can’t. It works great and allows me to slowly dry up my milking girls and give them a good three months off before they calve and come back into milk again.
After Lass calved in April last year, she took an inordinate amount of time to breed back. When finally she seemed to have conceived, I pregnancy tested her and it came back as positive so I thought all was well. Then a few months later she started acting and looking as if she was open – not pregnant – and another test confirmed this. So, we decided Lass was just going to finish raising her current baby and then be put into well deserved retirement. Her calf, a whopper of a fellow, was successfully weaned, Lass was dried up and turned out to spend the rest of her days in the big fields with the beef cows
Well, our best laid plans did not work out. Despite a dry as a bone floppy udder, one day we saw her now almost year old steer calf trying to nurse her! Before I knew it, she had come back into milk! A lot of milk! There he was, the stinker, acting just like a wee calf although he was now taller than Lass, nursing away! I brought Lass in from the field, and it was weaning all over again… a very noisy affair! Once again, floppy udder and all, she was turned out and yes, once again the stinker started nursing. Since he was such a nice big fellow at only 14 months old, we decided he needed to go in the cooler and Lass returned back down below to keep Heidi company in the milk cow paddocks.
Now what to do! The next day after dispatching of the steer was done and Lass removed to her old home by the milk house, I looked at Lass’s udder and decided I had to take some milk from her as it was full! Almost four gallons later I realized we had a problem. With her producing that much milk, I could not just suddenly stop milking her as that would risk mastitis. I needed a calf to help me out and Lass was not a cow to tolerate just putting any calf on her! It was one thing to graft a surrogate calf on her when her own newborn baby had just passed away, something entirely different to try putting a wee calf on her 14 months after she last gave birth! Would it even work, or would we be stuck with raising a bottle baby if she refused to accept it? Should we give it a go? After all, it was now three days since we dispatched her steer.
Normally when we wean a calf from Lass, she moos for a couple of days then accepts her baby is not coming back. This time was different. After separating Lass from the beef herd and dispatching her steer, she daily paced the paddock fence, mooing almost non-stop, agitated and upset. Not at all like my Lass cow! So early on Thursday morning, a day we had planned to go to Redmond to pick up a ton of pig grain, Darrell and I had a chat. I decided to go to where we had dumped the steer’s hide and innards after dispatching him on Monday and cut off a chunk of hide, take it to the milk cow paddock and see what Lass’s reaction was. I was not quite prepared for such a strong response from our old girl! She immediately started “talking” to this smelly strip of skin as if it was her baby! That sealed it. We got hold of our dairy friends in Vale, jumped in the little truck and made a dash trip over there to pick up a days’ old calf.
Bringing Dixie – as we named her – home, we tied the smelly strip of steer hide to her back and put her in the pen with Lass. At first, Lass did not know what to think! This creature smelled like her steer but was so tiny! Dixie, being hungry by this time, tried to nurse. Lass was not sure she was happy about that but as long as I stood close by, she let the small, rather smelly little thing nurse away to her hearts content. She did not know whether to accept the new calf or reject it. You could see the confusion on her face poor girl! By that evening, Lass had decided to at least tolerate the interloper although if the calf moved very far away from her, she would give a gentle moo and resolutely follow it. A good sign!
The next morning, I went down to milk Heidi and take a small amount from Lass as there was no way a few days old calf could drink as much milk as Lass was producing. While I stood by, Lass let the calf nurse away with only a tentative raising of her hoof now and then. After milking Heidi, I brought Lass, with Dixie following close behind, into the milk parlour where I took a couple of gallons of milk from Lass while Dixie finished getting a bellyful. Maybe this will work out I thought to myself. Later that day, I was happy to see Lass letting Dixie nurse away without me having to stand beside them. It was a good feeling. I removed the smelly section of hide.
Is the road ahead guaranteed an easy path? Hopefully it is. Hopefully Lass will not have a change of heart and decide after being in milk for almost 15 months that it finally is time for her to wean her calf – no matter how small it is – and dry up. With luck she will accept Dixie and continue being in milk for at least another couple of months or so. We shall see. But for now, Lass seems to be content. Her pacing has stopped as has her incessant mooing. Hopefully, when I head down to take some milk from her this morning, I will see evidence Dixie has a full belly and life will be good. If I must keep standing close by for the next few days to encourage Lass to be tolerant of this wee interloper, I gladly will do so. Either way, Lass truly is a phenomenal cow, the best I have ever had!