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TexasJerseyMilker

TexasJerseyMilker

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Aug 19, 2022
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SW Oregon
Tonight Daphne gave birth to a heifer. This is the most precious of calves. She is the last daughter of my 14 year old pet Jersey, the only purebred Jersey calf she has ever produced. All her calves were half Angus. Daphne is a classic beauty of her breed With a wide forehead, big dark eyes with long black eyelashes, a dished profile and a small muzzle. She's a small golden brown cow with a black mask, sweet natured and makes a ton of cream. I brought her in my horse trailer from Texas and she had a couple of more half Angus calves. Then I found it was possible to AI her with sex selected semen for a Jersey heifer. But I had not seen her come into heat anymore so I thought she must be too old and fat. Then one night she went crazy and attacked a plastic lawn chair and it was stuck on her head. I cut it off with loppers and she attacked it again. She was in flaming heat. This would be a high risk pregnancy because of her age and being open for years but but I told God thy will be done and I thought I would try it. She settled and when she came due, still no calf. She showed all the signs, made bag, made mucus, standing holding her tail out and twisting it but no calf. She would go back to ruminating and standing there looking in the window. This went on for days. I thought something was wrong with her or maybe the calf had died. The rancher across the road came over and said look, you can see the calf moving. It will be another day or two. He was right. She went into labor tonight and my husband has pulled many calves. He knew what to look for (from a distance) and timed the progression the water bag, the hooves pointing down to dive into the world. We would sneak away. I came back hoping to see the nose but there she was out on the ground and Daphne licking her. What a beautiful little creature, she looks like a deer fawn. But I can't let Daphne raise her because Daphne has a staph A mastitis history and their calves can catch it. Staph a never really goes away, it flares with every lactation. So I have to raise this heifer on store bought colostrum and milk replacer. I have stolen Daphne's baby. Pictures tomorrow.
 
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I was up until 4 am to give Willow, that's her name, the rest of the colostrum. She is bottle resistant so we just tubed it. This morning I expected more bottle resistance and All Star Calf Wrestling. But I tried something different. Wearing dark clothes so I looked like a cow's shadow, I bent over with her behind me and squirted some milk replacer on her mouth. She got to licking it then started hunting the back of my legs for a teat. I let her find the bottle teat and she latched on. She's lose it and hunt to find it again. She took the whole bottle, then tried to frisk and fell down. Pictures soon. I am so tired.
 
Daphne has now realized that her calf is in the barn and sometimes moos issuing Amber Alerts.

Daphne has a history of milk fever and at her age was just about guaranteed to go down. So I gave her calcium boluses or tubes of CMPK every 12 hours X 4 beginning at the first sign of birth. Not only that, she did not completely clear her placenta for 2 days causing me more anxiety. Yesterday she delivered and ate it. She's still living in the yard and getting special care. To dry her I simply do not milk her so the pressure will build up and shut down the milk factory. Also not feeding her any grain.

Willow (the calf) is now sucking down whole bottles of milk replacer and butting me for more.
 
Here she is in her pink coat. I only put it on her at night because it's cold here.

Willow had to be tubed the rest of her colostrum the first night of life so she was a tentative bottle nurser. With much encouragement she would only take half a bottle at a time the first day, so I offered a mid day feeding so she would take the rest of it. Instead of forcing her into a corner and shoving the bottle in her mouth and holding it there (she would just throw herself down) I decided to try to work with nature.

I put on dark black clothing to create the shadow of mama cow and bent over her with the bottle. And sure enough, she came up between my legs and started hunting around my nether regions. She only took the nipple if she had been hunting for it. I tried offering the bottle out in the open but nope, only takes the nipple if I am bending over her. Now she sucks down the whole bottles. I hope she will get hungry enough to take the bottle out in the open because now she is bumping the 'udder' to get more milk.
 
TexasJerseyMilker said:
Tonight Daphne gave birth to a heifer. This is the most precious of calves. She is the last daughter of my 14 year old pet Jersey, the only purebred Jersey calf she has ever produced. All her calves were half Angus. Daphne is a classic beauty of her breed With a wide forehead, big dark eyes with long black eyelashes, a dished profile and a small muzzle. She's a small golden brown cow with a black mask, sweet natured and makes a ton of cream. I brought her in my horse trailer from Texas and she had a couple of more half Angus calves. Then I found it was possible to AI her with sex selected semen for a Jersey heifer. But I had not seen her come into heat anymore so I thought she must be too old and fat. Then one night she went crazy and attacked a plastic lawn chair and it was stuck on her head. I cut it off with loppers and she attacked it again. She was in flaming heat. This would be a high risk pregnancy because of her age and being open for years but but I told God thy will be done and I thought I would try it. She settled and when she came due, still no calf. She showed all the signs, made bag, made mucus, standing holding her tail out and twisting it but no calf. She would go back to ruminating and standing there looking in the window. This went on for days. I thought something was wrong with her or maybe the calf had died. The rancher across the road came over and said look, you can see the calf moving. It will be another day or two. He was right. She went into labor tonight and my husband has pulled many calves. He knew what to look for (from a distance) and timed the progression the water bag, the hooves pointing down to dive into the world. We would sneak away. I came back hoping to see the nose but there she was out on the ground and Daphne licking her. What a beautiful little creature, she looks like a deer fawn. But I can't let Daphne raise her because Daphne has a staph A mastitis history and their calves can catch it. Staph a never really goes away, it flares with every lactation. So I have to raise this heifer on store bought colostrum and milk replacer. I have stolen Daphne's baby. Pictures tomorrow.
Click to expand...
You are right, your calf is beautiful!
 
One thing about Jerseys, they give so much milk they give their calves scours. Basically you have to bottle the calves to dole out the milk and are forced to make pets out of them :)

Or buy extra calves to try and foster. Have you seen the price of newborn calves at the auction yard lately?
 
TexasJerseyMilker said:
Here are her naked baby pictures.

View attachment 55346

This is her first visit to the milking parlor. That machine is a vacuum pump that runs the milker.
View attachment 55347
Click to expand...
Have ya figured out what makes em born naked yet???
Pretty lil heifer!
TexasJerseyMilker said:
One thing about Jerseys, they give so much milk they give their calves scours. Basically you have to bottle the calves to dole out the milk and are forced to make pets out of them :)

Or buy extra calves to try and foster. Have you seen the price of newborn calves at the auction yard lately?
Click to expand...
Yes. Yes I have!
I've heard stories of 1000 and 1200. But I personally haven't seen any of those. YET
20250306_113208.jpg
 

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