Jersey Heifer

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Time to Stop Dancing

May (black halter) is expecting in September thanks to a straw.  We held off on breeding Flora (red halter) because she was a bit younger.  It struck us as a good idea to send Flora to the bull rather than bring the bull home, especially since the dairyman we bought Flora and May from didn’t mind.  Further, there was a chance that the dairyman was going to get some pretty high-priced straws in time to use on Flora.  She met the bull instead.  Anyway, off they went just in time for us to get through kidding our goats.  The cows came home again yesterday.  It’s time to stop dancing.

It was nice having a month off from moving the cows.  They came back fat and slick, maybe a bit spoiled.  My pastures (yard) don’t compare to Steve’s pastures.  Not at all.  But we’re improving year after year.

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Talking to Your Cows

How do cows talk?  With their mouths….and with their manure.  Their manure says it has been raining a lot recently so let’s stick to the front end for today.

Talk to your cows.  They don’t mind.  But to hear them you have to listen with your eyes.  For example, here the cows told me they don’t care for fescue:

They couldn’t wait to leave the fescue behind.  They were placed on this patch at around 9:30 this morning while the day was still cool and the sun was hidden.  Just before the monsoon du jour hit we put them back in the barn and moved them to the next spot in the early afternoon:

This spot is right next to the spot they ignored, it’s just colonized by different plants, it’s a different time of day and the monsoon passed…for now.  If you look closely you’ll see white clover, dandelion, plantain, chickweed, pineapple weed, violets and a variety of grasses I’m not so good with…but little fescue.  They ate it right down to the ground.

Now, I’m not as good at speaking cow as I am with chicken or pig but I think this means they liked this spot better.  Or it may mean that early morning, pre-rainstorm fescue isn’t very tasty.  Or that they were really hungry when I let them out of the barn.  I don’t know.

Pssssst!

If any of you speak cow…specifically the Jersey dialect, please comment and let me know.

Full disclosure: I broke down and mowed behind the cows the other day.  There were tall clumps of fescue that I just couldn’t ignore.  I can only tolerate so much as I look out my window.  Bear with me.  I’m not there yet.