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The ones that don't work on my cows are the 7th and 8th! ;-) I have seen two calves in the last twenty or so years that have latched onto the supernumerary teats and kept sucking at them. They'd have got a little colostrum there to start with and so that's where they stayed. They would not...

Why does that animal appear to have so little hoof at the bottom of its legs? I'm sure it's not just the mud, as the edge of the hoof is visible on the surface of the ground in the side-on picture.

But then give them a few stripes of light and shade and they can't cope well at all! I've had a couple of white-faced animals which seemed to have really odd reactions to torch light and I had to be very careful when checking during calving or heat-detection at night.

I've put a calf that age onto a bottle when its mother died. Wouldn't leave it or it'll stop growing and be a waste of time - and have a miserable time of it. Sell it to the bottle-rearer as soon as you can so the calf still wants milk that way.

It's odd, but within normal range, I'd say. What is your concern? I have a cow just calved who always has a front half which is effectively just the two huge teats. Horrible udder. Her mother and grandmother were vastly better. She doesn't milk well either. You may find you don't want to...

Lucky catch! Here our insurance companies will no longer cover tractor fires if they can prove the likelihood they started in any kind or bird or animal nest. We all have stickers reading "stop and pop", stop the tractor, pop the bonnet so the birds don't think it's a nice place to start...

Keep a daughter and she'd probably do the same thing! When I did an insemination round a few years ago, there was a guy who had a lovely herd dairy cows and knew every one and all their families back generations. He knew exactly which bull he'd used which sired the group of cows which were all...

Poster may have mistaken/meant the membranes which came out with the calf, not realising there was much more than that to keep a calf growing and alive.

Life is too strong for many people!

We had some grain-fed Angus at Christmas time, brought by a guest with contacts with one of the few feedlots here. It was certainly tender, but had a funny sort of oily texture or taste. I didn't like it very much. Normally we eat our own and they're only on grass.

Why are we all such suckers for cute babies? Those two are gorgeous. You'll post more pictures? I'd like to see them.

The only place I would see an advert for a Russian "bride" would be here. I was a little surprised, but since I never stop to look at the ads as I pull the slider down the page, it was a passing insult only.

There is a theory, which I find quite compelling, that a protein in the sperm cells of some bulls, will prompt the embryo to split, thus identical twinning may well be caused partly by the bull. The other side of that theory is that some cows' eggs will be susceptible and some won't. How many...

The measure for me of a workable herd was demonstrated a couple of days ago. The calves are between two and four weeks old and the mob was a mixture of first-time heifers and older cows (about 16 adults in the group). I wanted to draft them without taking them all to my yards. Because they're...

Sometimes the "problem" which didn't get fixed was that the cattle are so calm, they won't move without some noise and fluster behind them!

We/I do it calmly whenever possible and have taught my previously-louder partner the same. The cows are far calmer than they used to be. It upsets me seeing wild, violent behavior at sale yards. It's unnecessary, probably taught by men who are actually afraid of the animals to their younger...

I'm sure you can farm a couple of million away in no time!

Cows which score high on the "helpfulness" index often buy credit here too. But not forever, if the black mark comes up the next time and has no opportunity to be negated in the same way.

They look very happy together. She's in nice condition!

I often see heifers do that, but usually only for a few minutes; just long enough for a calf to drown in its bag if it didn't break on the way out. That's why I try to supervise most heifer calvings, because I'd rather have a live calf. If I lose a little sleep, it's better than losing a...