Animal Antics

Yesterday morning Bruce had an appointment in town after milking.  When he returned home he went out and chopped what he thought would be 1 load that was left from the day before.  As it turned out, what was left didn't fit on one load so he took the 2nd chopper box out to finish.  He barely got done and a tire blew out on the chopper.  How many tires did I say were involved in chopping!  Anyway, that ended the chopping so he unloaded into the bag and went on to the feeding of the day.  We had an extra late start to evening milking.  I am SO glad we only have the one special needs cow.

Having animals brings its own entertainment and aggravation.  Every day, the first cows out of the pasture and home are #13 and #33.  Every day they compete to see who gets to be first, just like kids.  Today for some reason they weren't the first at the gate.  Bruce's dad always stands on the road when they come home and was surprised to see they were missing.  He counted, and for some reason #13 was the 26th cow to come home.  Our cows go into the same stall every day.  There is a group of 3-4 that tend to get mixed up routinely, so much so that when you walk up and say "ok girls, straighten yourselves out" they all back up and go where they belong!  We aren't on that end of the barn to see who chooses the wrong stall first, but they always rearrange themselves at our suggestion without any problems.  We currently have some cows marked that we are trying to catch in heat and breed.  This morning one of the marked cows bled off.  That is basically the cattle version of a period which tells us we missed our chance to breed her.  The purpose of the marking is so that when they mount the marking will be rubbed off.  This mornings cow bled off and still has her marking on her, completely untouched.  Once again, another cow that doesn't follow the manual!  The biggest cow in the barn doesn't think she can cross a 16" gutter.  Every day we have to escort her in to her stall. 

Today involved a road trip to fix the chopper tire.  After returning home Bruce had to cut some hay and chop it to feed the cows.  It will be nice when we are able to start feeding out of the silo again but for now the cow TMR is really pretty

we use a paint stick to mark the cows

Signs of a bleed off.  You wouldn't expect that with a 1500# cow