My new baby, Molly

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Just wanted to put something here to tell all the people that said Molly was a bad cow that they were in fact mistaken. In case you had ever wondered, I now have two back-pocket cows. Sweet Pea (now named Stinky) is like a lap dog. She lives to be scratched or brushed. If I would sit down on the ground, Stinky would put her head in my lap and go to sleep. Molly is the same way. All it took was some calm but firm interaction, and for Stinky to realize that I was not a monster gonna eat her face off. Once she calmed down, Molly did, too.

Molly and I have been working on stanchion practice for the past month or so, since the bad weather finally cleared up, and she's ready to go. She has a halter on, for the time being, anyway, and I can touch it, and her face, and she comes in to the headlock every morning to have her milking treats. She really looks forward to them, so she comes running when I call, if she's not already waiting in the barn. If I haven't got them ready yet when she gets in, she'll bump the stanchion bar with her nose and make it clunk so I know she's waiting. As soon as I take the bar down, she goes right in, tips her head to fit her horns in, and I shut the headlock on her. Next comes a nice, full body brushing, then I put the surcingle on her and turn on the pump, while I sit next to her with my head in her flank, pulling down on the surcingle belt to simulate the weight of a milker bucket hanging there. The only thing left to do is to attach the inflations when it comes time to actually milk her.

She obviously didn't settle that first day she ran off to join the neighbor's herd, because she's not close to calving yet, but if she got pregnant 3 weeks later, I could see that. Her udder is getting bigger by the day. This was a week ago, and it's bigger than that now. I expect her to calve by the end of May (probably sometime between the 20th and the 25th).
05-02-23 Molly 01.jpg

05-02-23 Molly 02.jpg

And in case any of you (that would be you, TJM) need proof that she's not "fighting the headlock," or otherwise injuring herself and others by "rushing backward," here she is locked securely in, and not caring a bit. It's totally a normal thing for her now, each and every morning. Not that she ever "fought" the headlock, ever. She just pulled back the first couple times, then stopped and continued eating. She doesn't pull back at all now, because it's not a scary thing.
05-02-23 Molly 04.jpg

05-02-23 Molly 03.jpg

She's just as sweet as pie right now, and I can do anything with her that I could do with my faithful old girl, Cricket. I can touch any place on her body, including her head, and her horns, and she's fine.
05-02-23 Molly 05.jpg

Here are the two of them together:
05-02-23 Molly and Stinky.jpg

I'll post more pictures later, with the milker on, after she calves.
 
Love it.
Love it!
LOVE IT!!

All it takes is time and effort. Lots of folks don't get it. Most cows just ain't born that way, it takes some training, tho occasionally some are just a natural.

Sounds like Molly is gonna calve about the same time my Opal is. Hopefully soon!
It's getting warm warm here.
90's past few days.
 
Molly was born nice, but she had a lot of world-rocking changes just before and just after I got her. Then factor in her age at the time (equivalent of a 15 year old teenage girl), and it made everything look worse than it was. I just needed to be patient with her, and gentling Stinky helped a LOT. Molly still looks up to Stinky as her superior, so whatever Stinky said, Molly followed right along. Still does. But they're both good girls. I'm actually MOST surprised about Stinky. I knew Herefords were a nice-tempered breed, but she's the first full Hereford I've handled, and I gotta say, everyone was right. She's like a tent cow. ;) She'd come in the house if she could fit through the door, LOL!

I really love the fact that they can both come in the barn now and Molly heads for her stanchion and Stinky heads for the manger, and I never have to sort them out. They know where they belong, and they just go. I used to have to shut Stinky outside, or lock her in a stall, so she didn't try to push Molly away from her treats, but now she knows there's hay in the manger, and she's happy with that, so she stays put and I don't have to lock her out of the barn. She would moo and have such sad eyes when I had to shut her out, LOL! She's a character. I don't know how I'm going to manage to give her back to the neighbor when the time comes. She's such a sweet girl, I wouldn't mind keeping her as a pet.
 
Well, Molly had her calf on Sunday, and to my utter shock, it's a bull. I was so convinced it would be a heifer. Poll hair and all... But it's fine, he's healthy and vigorous and full of spunk, and thank God he has a good appetite, because my milker pump went kaput when I tried to milk her. I got a gallon out of her the first time, and then I couldn't milk her the next day (but Joe did!) until we found and fixed the vacuum issue on my pump. I have severe pain in the base of my thumbs, making it nearly impossible to hand milk, and she has edema, which makes it all worse. Her back teats are only half an inch long and shaped like little fat upside down triangles.

I got the pump working again and got her totally empty last night, but I had to sit there and hold the rear inflations on because they kept falling off. Poor Molly, she's been SO good, but things keep going wrong with the equipment, LOL! She's getting her trial by fire, for sure, and when things finally calm down, she'll be bomb-proof. I did bring in two gallons of milk last night, and when I checked the cream line this morning, my jaw dropped. It's because it's the first time she got emptied all the way, but those two jars are 37% cream. (2.5 quarts milk and 1.5 quarts cream on each jar.) She's going to be a VERY good milk cow, and I'm already drooling over the sweet milk and all the cheese and butter I'm going to be making this summer. Summer butter is always so shockingly yellow (from the pasture).

She's very good in the stanchion (yay for all those practice sessions) and the actual milking doesn't bother her, but all the strange noises (when the pump was acting up) and me cussing and being stressed didn't help at all. But, the only thing she did was poop, and I expect that from any cow that just calved, even if the milker is working perfectly.

I don't have any current pictures of them, because of all the foofarah with the pump, but for now, here's a picture of Molly and Joe right after he was born. And of course, being a cow, she dropped him in the one patch of loose dirt in an otherwise beautifully green and grassy pen. Cows...

05-21-23 Molly and Joe 01.jpg

05-21-23 Molly and Joe 02.jpg

This was her udder on calving day, about two hours before she popped. I'm happy to say, it's much smaller now, and I got it emptied out to the point of wrinkly last night. Whew!

05-21-23 Molly 02.jpg

She's a great little cow, with a great attitude, and I am so lucky to have her. She really turned out well. :) Joe is almost too pretty to be a boy, but he has a boy attitude. ;) He's a spitfire and he has his own ideas of how things should be. I have my work cut out for me with him.
 
She sure looks like she's got a big o bag o milk!
Calf ought to grow like wildfire and your making me drool with all that of butter and cheese!!

Love that second pic. She's certainly got her eye on him! What a mysterious lil creature he is, says she!
 
She loves him to the moon and back. She's just the best mother! When he was first looking for the milk bar, she stood still and allowed him to get latched on right away. All my other girls would circle around, trying to sniff and lick, and pulling the teat out of the calf's mouth every time. Molly just stood there and let him nurse while she gazed adoringly at him. I'm really proud of her, not just for the milking aspect, but for the wonderful mother she is.

Luckily, that big bag is mostly edema. It will shrink down to a more normal size as the days pass. It does show that she has capacity, though, doesn't it? I was really freaking out, thinking all that was milk, and she's a heifer. If she has that much milk this time, how much will it be next time, you know? But whew, not all of it was milk. :)
 
Glad to see that over time you got her to be the kind of cow you were wanting to replace your old faithful. I don't know that I would have wanted to wait so long for the milk but no matter, she is yours. That's great that she took to the calf so well and is a good mother.
Are you going to be able to let the hereford go back now that she is such a pet? I think I would want to keep her... maybe she is bred too??? Then you could put the bull calf in the freezer and just get the neighbor's bull to breed them both and have a calf or 2 to sell every year or when you don't need a beef.
 
MurraysMutts said:
Stinky is a freemartin @farmerjan
Just there for company I think she said.
Click to expand...
I forgot that she was a freemartin, loaned for company.

Molly was 1/2 angus and 1/2 jersey I think...
Regardless, good for @Lannie , getting her tamed back down and her coming in and being receptive to the stanchion type head catch for milking...
 
Yes, Molly is half Angus, but her black, polled daddy gave her a red gene and a horned gene. It's OK, it makes her look pretty I think. Joe's 3/4 Angus, 1/4 Jersey, but HIS daddy is a homozygous polled black Angus, so he's polled and jet black.

We had a very nice (and quiet!) milking session today, and there were no problems until I (stupid me) told Rich to go ahead and let Joe back out of his stall. I figured he could clean up the last of the cream... He bucked out of his stall and fell down, Molly whisper-mooed at him and pooped all over me, so since we were almost done anyway, I shut the pump off and turned her loose. (Yes, I know, I won't let her "win" again, but honestly, I was covered in green poo splats. I can only take so much... LOL!)

I tasted her milk from this morning to see how close we are to being able to drink it (colostrum-wise), and even though it's still pretty yellow, it's SWEET! Like, sugar-sweet! I got myself an Ice-Cream-Cow! And now, several hours later, I see the cream line on this morning's milk is one quart cream per gallon jar. She's gonna be JUST fine as my new cow, and she was worth the wait and the effort. (I dumped the last of the neighbor's milk out for the dogs to finish up - from now on, I'm drinkin' Molly's milk only.)

I SWEAR I'll try again to remember to take the camera outside for this evening's milking and festivities. Joe is so cute, it's not funny, and he's figured out how to take corners at speed now. My camera isn't fast enough to keep up with him, but maybe I can get a picture of him if he gets tired. ;)
 
Lannie said:
since we were almost done anyway, I shut the pump off and turned her loose. Yes, I know, I won't let her "win" again
Click to expand...
Forget about it. More harm comes from over milking with a machine (damaged teat ends) than under milking ever does.
You're just taking the pressure off her udder and as long as you got enough to satisfy your needs, undermilking trains her to be a faster milker. Joe will take care of the rest until the next milking.
 
Son of Butch said:
Forget about it. More harm comes from over milking with a machine (damaged teat ends) than under milking ever does.
You're just taking the pressure off her udder and as long as you got enough to satisfy your needs, undermilking trains her to be a faster milker. Joe will take care of the rest until the next milking.
Click to expand...

It's not the milk I'm worried about, it's letting her out right after she poops or pees. A couple times of that and the little voice in her head says, "Oh! If I poop, she'll let me out," and forever and ever after, she'll poop when she wants out. So I usually never let them out when they're actively fussing, or within a few minutes of pooping. But one time won't hurt. It was just the ick factor that made me do it. :sick:

Last night's milking went PERFECTLY. She went in the headlock to eat her treats, and I put the milker on her and milked out what she let me have. Joe had nursed earlier and wasn't hungry, so I didn't have him to help me, and she was holding up, so I only got a tad more than a quart. That is not enough to warrant all the sweat involved, not to mention washing up the milker. So I think I'll just drop the evening milking now and go to morning milking only. She will not explode if I leave a quart in there overnight. I like morning milking much better anyway, and Joe will be hungry in the mornings after having been locked in his stall all night, so I'll get a good letdown on the quarters I milk. I can't believe what a good girl she has been. Seriously, it's only been what, three days? And last night was the third time with the milker on. Yup, she's doing great. 😊
 
NOOOO! I don't like spring or summer calves. Joe was totally an oops calf. For me and the way I do things, it's inconvenient to calve this early. I'm going to TRY to wait until winter to breed her, so she'll calve no sooner than late August or early September. Mid September is my favorite time for calving. It's starting to cool off then, the flies aren't as bad, and the calf is still big enough to take all the milk every day by the time blizzard season starts, in case I can't milk. Joe will be weaning age by the time I really need a backup milker for blizzards and such, so I hope he's a nice boy and easy to work with as he gets older. The chances of me finding a foster calf to replace him are slim to none around here in the late fall/early winter.

I'm going to try to hang on to Stinky until I send Molly to the Angus neighbor to be re-bred. Molly will be having heats again now, and she's going to want to play mounting games with someone. Joe's too little. ;) I don't think she'd be inclined to jump the fence again, especially with a calf and in her "mature" condition, but never say never. I'll see if I can hang on to Stinky at least until the neighbor's herd gets moved up to their winter pasture in October. Having them right on the other side of the fence is too much temptation for my sanity. I'd like to keep her, period, but I don't know if the neighbor would be willing to let her go. She's worth a lot in beef, and after getting the bill for the backup generator, we don't have the money to buy her. (And besides, my practical self says why feed a big cow that gives nothing back? Well, if she's a pet, I guess it's OK, but OMG she can pack away the groceries, and they ain't cheap. So she'll probably go back home by winter time, if not sooner.)

I do have a practical side, it just doesn't rear its ugly head very often. ;)
 
And we have achieved equilibrium! :) Fourth milking (yesterday morning) went exactly as I wanted it to. Joe nursed for a while to get her started and soften up her short little back teats, and when he started to slow down a bit, Rich pulled him off for a bit, while I dipped and cleaned three teats and put the milker on her. She never moved a muscle the whole time, just stood there, enjoying her pellet mash. When I was about halfway through my portion of the milking, Rich let Joe get back on and he finished up his one front quarter while I got the last bit out of the other three. It was PERFECT. :giggle:

He'll get bigger, and I won't always want him nursing at the same time I have the machine on Molly, but we'll make those small adjustments when necessary. Meanwhile, he's becoming lead-trained. I'm just SO happy that she's such a good girl in the stanchion and she doesn't mind being milked by machine at all. Which is good, because I can't milk by hand anymore, LOL!

And her milk is soooo sweet and creamy. I might have to start taking some of the cream off the drinking milk, it's so rich. I'm not used to that much cream. It's nice for a treat, but I prolly shouldn't be drinking it all evening, eh? ;) Besides, BUTTER! The more cream, the more butter. I'd like to stop buying butter at the store, too, and Molly's milk will accomplish that goal. It's insane to have to buy ANY dairy products when there's a perfectly good milk cow out in the pasture, and I'm happy to be able to start phasing out the store-bought stuff now. :) (Homemade is always better, anyway.)
 

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