The New Baby

And mama, chin deep in green chop

Gingers Gotta Stick Together

Three milking shorthorns sharing the salt lick...Northstar, Rosie and Cinnamon.

Brand Loyalty

Broadway last March, with her heifer calf, Bloomingdale...a Poker daughter

how I wish someone was taking a show string this year so she could compete as a junior heifer calf.

I will always be a fan of the Holstein cow. They are the go to cow in the dairy world, utilitarian and productive, hard working, and lovely.


However, the little colored cows sure do have a lot of personality.  


I don't like milking the pretty little brown Jerseys...seems like every one we have ever had is temperamental and persnickety...but they are excellent grazers and convert feed to milk impressively. We had a half-bred once...black Jerseys some call them...and she gave a phenomenal amount of milk. She was a witch and getting it out of her was life-threatening, but she made a lot of it.


The milking shorthorns are tough and beautiful in their red coats that shade from copper to burgundy. The ones we have come from a bull that threw a lot of milk as well.


Both breeds seem to excel as lead cows. (A lead cow is the one that takes them out to pasture and brings them back in for milking.) A smart lead cow can save a lot of running and chasing.


Yesterday morning we all stood around out in the barnyard waiting to see which cow found the open north gate first. New pasture...or one they hadn't been in in a month at least. There was new grass out there waiting for them..all they had to do was walk to it. First they had to find the gate. That's where the lead cow comes in.


We were taking bets it would be Heather, Liz's old retired Jersey, who found it first. Heather is a great lead cow; she knows all the fields, and tends to notice the gates.


Hordes of Holsteins walked right past the gate and collected in a group around the heifer pasture gate, which was closed. Heifers walked right on by. Heather came out and walked by too. They all began to mill around in confusion. Why was the gate closed?


Then out came beautiful Broadway, our oldest milking shorthorn cow. She walked right over to the open gate. Stopped to lift her tail while she contemplated what she was seeing. (Cows poop whenever anything happens..walk in, walk out, get milked, get fed, be hungry, pause to think for a minute...it all brings out the fertilizer production system in a cow.)


As soon as she had that out of the way she strode confidently off to the north. She knew what was out there waiting. Soon Heather saw her and charged right off the bridge as fast as her little Jersey legs would carry her.

Heather and Liz some colder time in the past

That's all it took. Even the young heifers who had never been in the big pasture followed and they were off. They came in last night with bulging bellies, and, hopefully, full udders...

The Cow Whisperer and Strawberry Shortcake

Liz and Strawberry

Our Liz. Walked right out, tossed a halter on Northstar the other night and brought her in to be milked. You don't normally do that with a first calf heifer. Norry walked in like an old show cow. It was pretty cute. She has been led a couple times before, but still.


 BTW, June named Norry in a name the calf contest a while back. Northstar baby pic

High comedy around the place yesterday morning. Norry had the tiniest little heifer the other day...so small we spent some time looking for a twin but didn't find one.

And a few weeks ago, Velvet also had a mini calf...a bull. Although the girl is red and the guy is black, they are brother and sister on the male side, both being sired by our Checkerboard Magnum's Promise bull of old.

At the moment the big heifer pen at the back of the barn is empty and Shortcake, as Liz named the bull, has been living there in splendor. We decided to put Strawberry, the heifer (aren't we cute?) in with him for her own safety. She had already been nearly drowned in the mud by the big heifers out in the barnyard, curious to see anything so tiny in their domain.

Is that my bottle...do you have my bottle, buck, buck, bunt, bunt, bunt

Well, just as we started to let the cows in for morning milking, Strawberry shot out of the pen like a blob of red toothpaste and began to bolt around the barn.


Liz grabbed her (she only weighs about thirty pounds) and stuffed her back in


She came back out


Lather, rinse, repeat.


Then Shortcake, deciding that this all looked like a lot of fun, hopped through the wall himself.


We were all laughing so hard we could barely catch them. (And isn't it just like a guy to not figure out for himself how to get in trouble but to embrace it so gleefully once somebody shows him how).
 

Since we did have to get some chores done rather than play with calves all morning, the boss put up some gates and plywood to keep the little miscreants in the pen...and so far Strawberry has only gotten out one more time when the big beef steer opened the gate, but who knows what we will find this morning.

Sometimes Red

Is my favorite color....or at least Broadway is my favorite cow. (click to embiggen my dear old girl)


**I actually prefer blues and greens, but I love them red cows

Redeux

Two calves born at the same time last night. Right at milking. Suffice to say that even with six people running around like beheaded chickens, it was just insane. 


Broadway started first. She always has huge calves for some reason. Even her first calf, Scotty, who is half Jersey, was a giant. This one was no exception and she would NOT settle and have it lying down. 


While we were watching her, Lakota started calving too. Both of them had really big calves and needed some help.


When Broadway's big, red baby finally slid out into the world the boss declared, "It's a bull."


I believed him. He's seen a calf or two in all his years of farming.


Liz is not quite so trusting and checked later. Nope, a heifer, by the Select Sire Power milking shorthorn bull, Poker. The new baby is a full sister to Rose Magnolia...and I will welcome names from you folks, who named her big sister for me.


Lakota, alas had a bull and not a real healthy one. A real shame as he is a beauty, sired by the ABS bull, Force. I am really hoping he makes it.


Anyhoo, by the time we got to the house after dealing with all the stuff new milkers need, plus milking, plus discovering that Licorice had a temp and needed some doctoring, and passing out extra good hay to all the fresh cows, it was late as heck. And of course the sick heifer I am taking care of in the green house decided that she was really, really thirsty, but must dump every single pail of water I lugged up from the house....I had to have Becky and the boss both help me take care of her.


French toast (Becky makes the best ever) sausage and bacon for dinner. Totally guilt free...I think we earned it.

Red Letter

Night.....


Our cow, Asaki, decided to have her calf last night at around 11. Alas, a bull, but a really handsome guy.

Between helping the boss with her and a 3:30 barn check I am kind of stupid today...but here are some pics of him plus another bull calf. The bottom calf is Licorice's Maxwell son. 


Maxwell is at ABS, as a young sire. We have two calves by him, both bulls, alas, but they are really outstanding. Of course, if you look at his mama, here, you can probably see why. Liz has good taste.

Creepy

Simon, the unlikely, elderly, best hunter on the farm

Fog this morning. Couldn't see more than the vaguest outline of the heifer barn, which is right next to the house. I worry with the crew out on the roads so early; Alan off to milk a lot of cows somewhere else and Liz on the way here to milk ours.

Last night bringing the cows in by moonlight was an interesting experience. It is lovely out there in the moonglow. Even the mud turns all silver and shines. However, dear little Rosie, the milking shorthorn heifer, has turned into a lunatic, who charges anyone she sees.

Oddly her roan and white coloring blends in with the darkness much better than the stark black and white of the Holsteins so watching for her is problematic.

You kind of have to rely on the sound of hurried hoof steps in the mud to tell you when this juggernaut of naughty (and dangerous) bovine is coming at you.

However, in the dark the sounds of the cows walking echo off the horse trailer and the corn crib and the heifer barn. Sloppy, soupy, mud-song-surround sound.

I was kind of nervous about it when I got left behind, being fence while waiting for the last few cows. Everyone else went in to let cows in.

Then the last few cows surprised me as I was shutting the big gates...old lady with a broken foot, deep, sticky mud, big, heavy red gate that has to be dragged...I wasn't moving very fast.

From right behind me I heard a soft moo. Oops, the cows weren't all down yet. (Even with a good flashlight it is really hard to see them). There was Mandy...and the two Jersey heifers...and Rosie.

Who took one look at me and ran like heck...to get away from me.

Hmmmm......

High Gear

Yeah! We are in it. And hoping and praying that the rain holds off...all week if it wants to.

One field is ready for the seeder and the Sudex is waiting to be planted. Another field is started.

New bull is home after an all day trip for the guys to bring him. New pen was built for him in the new woodshed so he can be quarantined for a bit. He is way too friendly and is going to need to learn his place in the grand scheme of things. Nobody needs a friendly dairy bull. Probably a ring in his nose will help.

He is a son of the milking shorthorn bull, Logic, out of a show cow from a herd up north of here. Not as pretty as Promise was when we got him, but he has a half sister that is real nice and we loved his dam when we looked at him last spring (took a long, long time to get him bought.) His name is Hot Fudge......hmmmm.....guess I will call him TNB for short...The New Bull that is.

World Series of Birding is on today in New Jersey. I cannot wait to see the lists of what birds are counted. Cornell fields amazing teams and they have been scouting and posting photos and making my little heart beat apace all week. Field guides can't compare to the pics they put up when it comes to identifying obscure birds. I am confident that I will know some warblers now that I never even tried to look for before. Best of luck to teams Redhead and Anti-Petrel.

*****Can you find Keebler the Shuttlecat in the third photo?

Big Red

The new calf, a son of Spungold-R Frolic Poker, full sibling to last year's Rose Magnolia.

Out of Broadway

Seeing Red on the Day of the Green

Here is somebody who wears green every day

As a Facebook friend pointed out the dairy markets are crashing again. It was looking as if we were going to see some decent prices this summer, which is a great thing for little farms like ours. Although we milk year round, we are just a bit on the seasonal side, with a lot of cows calving right now.

Then the mamas go outside to graze for the summer, fresh and ready to make a lot of milk for us on that nice green grass. For those circumstances to coincide with good prices would mean we could pay of some of the poor folks to whom we owe money and maybe do a few of the things many folks take for granted.

Alas, I guess those futures markets were just idle speculation, tempting dairy farmers into thinking things might be okay for a change. You can read ongoing discussions on all the factors involved in the dairy markets here.

So we are seeing red the about market messing around, and we are seeing it in the color of our bottom line.

We are also seeing it in the lovely mahogany-and-white of the big bull calf born to Broadway last night. He is sure a beauty! Of course he decided to be born at midnight after a six-hour struggle on the part of his mama, so I am even more jet-lagged than after the time change. We took it in shifts to walk over to the barn and check on old B-Dub.

For hours and hours and hours, nothing was happening. Then there were feet and a nose when I made the last hike. I assisted a little just because she had been laboring so long, but she would probably have had him okay without me. He is so huge I had to call the boss to lift him over the gate in front of her so she could lick him off!

As time goes on I like the milking shorthorn cattle more and more. Six hours of hard labor and B-Dub jumped to her feet the minute he was out and swapped ends to moo and lick. Six hours of being hard labored upon and he was shaking his head and sneezing and trying to crawl up to her face in less than a minute after birth. The red ones are hardy cows indeed.

Happy St. Patrick's day to everyone! I am using the circles under my eyes for my wearing of the green. With all the McIntosh's and McGiverns and Ferrins and such in the family background, I figure there is green enough right in my blood.

A First

Most folks who spend a lot of time working on a dairy farm end up delivering a calf sooner or later. In theory every cow has a calf every year so there are plenty of opportunities.

Yesterday was Becky's day. She went to the barnto feed the calves just a little bit early, as she wanted to watch something on TV last night (for some reason we have been getting out of the barn a bit later than we like).

When she went to the back of the barn, Bailey's daughter, Booth, a Regancrest Chilton daughter, was having her first calf. Beck ran to the house for help and then ran back. Of course the rest of us had to get our boots and coats on.

By the time she got back, what had just been a pair of front feet had become a head and shoulders. The head was flopped down under the body of the baby in a very awkward position. She turned it back up and helped guide what ended up being a nice little shorty heifer on her journey into the world.

It took Booth a while to warm up to the whole idea of motherhood and she spent the first few minutes of baby's life gobbling haylage and ignoring her. However, just as I went to get some grain to sprinkle on the little one (sometimes that will get them to licking their baby), something clicked and she began to slurp the calf with her big old tongue like there was a sale and she was first in line.

I can't say enough about milking shorthorn bulls for calving ease on Holstein heifers. Other than the head being turned under the calf on the floor behind the cow, which could happen at any birth, this heifer had the calf as easily as calving ever goes. And the calf was standing up and walking around the barn within ten minutes. We have tried Jerseys, Angus and Hereford and always had one problem or another. Of course you have difficult births with every breed, but we do like the shorthorns best.

Winston

Another calf born yesterday. It was an amazing morning with geese ringing up off the river through the fog like rather noisy ghosts, lower than the roof of the house and just barely visible, (but eminently very hear-able), and the air the color of a million-dollar pearl.

This has been the week for unexpected visits from assorted folks, from dear friends to the milk inspector. They are all good folks and we love to see them, but we sure had to scurry to keep up with things. The boss is working on getting in some firewood, and finishing up a couple of bits of hay. Hopefully the rain holds off a few more days. It sure is soggy out there.

Liz went up and got the new mama and baby while we were milking and brought them down. She decided to choose a name for the new one that fit the day in a proper way. This may be the first heifer ever named Winston, but she is a good 'un and we are glad to have her.

We had a real nice little half-shorty bull born the other day too, to Alan's Bayliner who is an own daughter of Whirlhill Kingpin, a bull from the sixties, which is quite an accomplishment. Bayliner is from Bayberry, so she is a half sister to my favorite cow, Broadway, dam of our shorthorn show heifer, Rose Magnolia. Alan named him Barbossa, which seemed pretty fitting as well.

Looks like another sunny day on tap for today, so when I get over the jet lag from being up until after midnight after a late and extremely exasperating meeting, I will be looking for a reason to work outdoors.....

Around the Farm

Alan built us a huge wood shed all in a week, all by himself....cut the logs for the poles, set the poles, built the sides and roof and roofed it with used tin that blew off the barn roof before that big project. Must be seen to be believed, pics to come soon. Now we just have to get some wood in it.

Becky and I got the garlic planted yesterday, the latest yet, but more than double the usual size plot. We dug out the entire bean patch and put in garlic. Liz brought home a bunch of left-over bulbs from an Amishman she visited in her travels and I decided to plant them all, along with some of my own seed stock from this year. We love garlic and I always run out of home-grown long before I run out of winter. Hopefully next season will be different.

It was a great day for getting out and planting, colder than was comfortable, but you warm up quickly when digging. The ground was muddier than it should be, but it has been muddy all fall pretty much continuously so I am not going to worry about that.

On the phone half the day yesterday too, but with the owner of a bull we are trying to get bought rather than with politicians. (BTW, tried the Kim Komando pound sign thing...works on some calls, not on others). We looked at nice shorthorn bull a couple of months ago and then didn't hear anything for a while. Now we are back to negotiating. Hopefully we will wind up with him, as he is real nice. Alan and I fell in love with his dam from the moment we saw her out in the free stall at their farm. One of those cows that just jumps right out at you, all angular and sleek and correct.

Today, I figure if the phone rings it won't be a robocall. It is cold enough that it is probably clear out, so maybe we will get one more good day to get stuff done before the rain comes back.

Have a good one!

Milking Shorthorns High Average

At the Fall for Colors Sale

Lucky

Is a Holstein heifer by Chilton out of my Trixy family. Yesterday morning she had a heifer calf by our milking shorthorn bull, Checkerboard Magnum's Promise. I was thrilled to see red when Liz brought her down the lane and a heifer to boot, happy dance indeed!

I am going to get Liz to tattoo her right away, because she is virtually an exact duplicate of several other daughters of the same bull. I would love to get them all in halters and line them up for a picture. Maybe next spring...even the half Jersey looks amazingly like the others.

If it weren't for size you wouldn't be able to tell Northstar from Rio from this new one, whose name is Laramie.

Jersey Plus Shorthorn Equals....

I am smart and I know it.

I was loose in the barn this morning and gave the boss lady quite a run for her money.

We have been waiting more than patiently for Liz's Jersey, Moments to calve. She is the one who aborted her baby last year at this time when hunters were harassing the heifers. We sold Hillbilly, the other animal affected by the affair, but nobody had the heart to part with Moments...even those among us who prefer the black-and-white cow or the milking shorthorn to the little brown cow. In order to get her bred back as quickly as possible she was serviced to our shorthorn bull. She started looking as if she was going to pop any second now about two weeks ago. That is kind of a Jersey thing...they always seem to do that. We kept her up in the barn and barnyard and watched....and watched....and watched....

Not sure what to think about all this

Liz stayed up all night with her on Tuesday. I ran to the barn far more often than was convenient yesterday.

No calf.

Then last night right after milking she got down to business and popped out a little girl in just a little more time than it took to tell the story. She is quite an interesting color as you can see. Except for a dished Jersey face and a black nose she looks a lot like a shorthorn.

First milking with the machine.
Moments was a very good girl about it. Liz hand milked her last night.

Home Girls of Northview

On Parade

***Well, actually on their way down to the barn for morning milking

Traffic jam, NY style...upstate NY that is

Detroit

Bonneville and friends

Moments,
we were hoping she was pregnant
and the other day when I walked by her, her calf to be was poking its fanny against her side
and I got to feel it kicking and wiggling, hooray for Moments!

My favorite cow, my milking shorthorn, Broadway, thanks Alan for giving her to me!

B-dub as I call her gets three pics just because she is so special.
Can you believe her amazing color?

Shorties at the Fair

Rose Magnolia, our girl, shown in the intermediate calf class

The other shortie at the fair,
sired by Promise, our old bull,
a junior yearling, I think.

Rose Magnolia at the Fair

Some fast phone pics sent home by Liz during and after clipping. Her head is shaped a lot like that of her paternal grandmother Gold Mine Poppys OT Kay (Her sire is the Select Sire Power bull, Poker).

***Yet another update. There is another milking shorthorn heifer over at the fair, a nice yearling. Guess who her sire is?

Yep, the two shorties that will compete are very closely related. Rose's granddad is the other heifer's papa. Even though the older animal will almost inevitably beat little Rose I am simply tickled red (shorthorn red). I picked Promise out myself from a photo I saw online. I fought kinda fiercely to get him drawn rather than just beefed (as a certain husband was going to do). I have no objections whatsoever by being beaten by one of his offspring.