Meet little Daisy calf
Bella had her calf last week. We were getting really nervous for her as we watched her udder continue to expand. What a relief when I walked into the paddock and saw sweet Daisy sitting up and alert. When I checked on her she was quick to stand and seemed strong and healthy. Bella was still eating the afterbirth, so I only missed the birth by a few 15 minutes or so. The two younger house cows - Rosie and Charlotte, were a bit confused about the whole thing (I don't know why, as they had seen calves before), so I had to put the in a different paddock overnight to let Bella have some time with her calf, without the other two getting in the way (maybe because Charlotte was a previous foster calf?).
Bella's udder was huge, and we were worried that she would get mastitis again, so we tried to milk her on day 2. Surprisingly she walked into the milking bales (hastily set up a few days before) and ate her grain while we attached the milking machine. She held up all her milk though, so we don't know if her huge udder is all swelling and not much milk, or if she was keeping it all for the calf (and sometimes her teats don't go into the milking cups when her udder is so swollen). We tried again a week later, with the same result. So as long as cow and calf continue to look healthy, we will leave them alone for a few weeks.
I do want to milk again eventually as we haven't had fresh raw milk for a couple of years now. We just want to let the swelling go down in Bella's udder first before we start feeding her a lot of grain to get milk production going. Lucky we still have plenty of green grass at the moment!
Now here are the baby photos, I could watch her all day :) what do you think?
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Thanks Chris, Bella has a nick name “Mrs Kicky” because I think her udder gets quite sensitive at first, so we only want to milk her if she needs it for mastitis prevention, otherwise I can wait until she is more comfortable, and then she will usually let us have most of the milk (keeping some for her baby of course). What you’re suggesting would work for some cows, but Bella is a little too clever for her own good sometimes and she is very suspicious of any such tricks.
Thanks Leigh, the swelling is better than previous calves, so I think we’ve had some success with reducing her grain (poor Bella though, grain is her favourite). Now we just have to wait and see….
What a pretty calf! Glad all went well and I hope the udder swelling is resolved soon. Always worrisome with anything out of the ordinary.
Golly, what a cutie, Miss Daisy is! I’ve heard you can trick the cow into letting down her milk, by setting her up in the bales, and letting the calf suckle. When she lets the milk down for her calf, you clean the teats and start milking. I’ve don’t have personal experience with this though. Just read about it.
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