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April 29, 2012: The Adventure Continues

Since my last blog life has been typically loony, but most of it has been good loony. I A. I.d Makierie with Belvedere and she has just reached 21 days post A. I. so I am busy chewing my nails even more than usual. Borina came into heat again and was duly inseminated with Louie, I think that is a brilliant match and she had better a) conceive and b) have a heifer.

Firn Junior was also inseminated; I am selling her so she was done with Hype, a quality young bull who has not yet been performance tested based on his daughters and as such is still quite cheap to use.

Bestie came in heat today, she was not yet inseminated because it is too soon after calving. In three weeks' time, I'll do her, probably with Eclipes. Babeica and Blue Moon were both confirmed in calf and on Wednesday Babeica went off to her new home (she was supposed to go last week, but the little monster decided to make a bid for freedom and jumped off the bakkie, resulting in no serious injuries and her new owner, the horse mutterer, being somewhat perplexed at this extremely quiet Jersey I was selling him.) Thankfully this time her transportation went without a hitch and she is now eating grass and teaching a bunch of toddlers how to hand-milk a cow (it's harder than it looks. Trust me on this).

Moon is in calf to Eclipes, but I will probably be selling her before the year is out. I have 9 cows and heifers on the sale list (8 now that Babeica has gone), and though I won't be happy to see the poor dear things go, I'm excited at the prospect of buying some quality heifers. The handful of cows I've decided to keep are staying largely for sentimental reasons, but, well, that's how it goes on this farm.

Blue Star is hanging in there; she really is a bit of a runt, but she's growing steadily, eating well and should make a drastic turn for the better once she's weaned off milk. Calves that struggle with their lungs very often turn the corner and come right when they are weaned; Star's family is quite famous for doing this. They are likely allergic to cow milk; Babe was raised on mieliepap (porridge made from maize) and Beth (a cow I sold to my parents) drank goat's milk. Star is almost ready to be weaned at 55kg.

Bartholomew the Bull has been registered; he will be sold when he's weaned and doing well. He's getting along fabulously; though he has also caught colds once or twice, he continues to be one of our most vigorous calves and causes considerable grief to the poor lady in charge of feeding the calves. He's grown simply huge on three litres of milk and ad lib calf pellets each day. This morning he was eartagged. Though we know our cattle by name, not numbers, it's very hard to tell small calves apart (all Jersey calves seem to be the same sort of fawny brown) especially when you have 40 on milk, so we give them little metal eartags with numbers stamped on. Bartholomew was a bit of a problem; his number is 12001 (12 for the year 2012, 001 because he was my first official calf this year) but of course my parents had their 12001 (Hydeaway Katjiepiering) in early January. Confusion, you may guess, was imminent; luckily my dad had the brainwave of using the "1" stamp to make a little X in front of his number. The X ended up as a sort of inverted Y thing but at least the problem is solved.

Eartagging is quite painless the way we do it; sucking away at their bottles the calves are all but oblivious to the tag being quickly inserted in their ear. I bet it hurts less than having your ears pierced (my only adornment being a plain cross, I wouldn't know) and they barely jump before latching onto their bottles again. Mr. Bartholomew is a greedy (and messy) eater so he forgot all about it within a few seconds.

Moon was slightly ill for a few days; her milk dropped and she didn't finish her feed once or twice, but as she wasn't running a fever or showing other symptoms, we decided to give her a few shots of a vitamin B and phosphorous combination and liver stimulant and by the time the three-day course was done she was once again as happy as a bird.

The milk production looks quite dismal at the moment, it's not a great time of year. We are in for a very long and hard winter since the summer was drier than I have ever known it; feed prices are quite likely to shoot through the roof and we can only hope that a milk shortage will result and the milk price will rise accordingly. We'll make it, though. Christ loves His cows.

Though her production is naturally beginning to drop, Makierie still stands her ground as top cow; she has astonished me this lactation and I can promise her that she won't be on the sale list - and not only because of the milk.

Today's stats

Cows in milk: 8

Total litres produced: 115.8

Average litres per cow: 14.4

Top cow: Bokmakierie 20.8l

On a much sadder note, I lost Bellini last week to a disease known as pastuerella mannheimia haemolitica (not sure of the spelling there). It is just as bad as it sounds and despire the fact that Bellini had been inoculated several times against the disease, she succumbed after a long struggle. She was always a runt from her birth at a diminutive 17kg; shortly after being born she contracted a severe salmonella infection and pulling her through that was nothing short of a miracle, but afterwards she always struggled to maintain weight and at two years of age she was not yet big enough to be inseminated. She would never have survived calving, and it was through an act of mercy that the Lord brought her painless death upon her. She was repeatedly injected with Fenylbutazone, a painkiller. She died peacefully in the night; she did not suffer. It hurts, of course, but she was on the sale list and I know she would have been sent straight to the abbatoir, so I must thank God for loving even a runty little heifer enough to prevent her suffering, sad as it is.

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. Matthew 10:29

April 4, 2012: On Bulls

Bokmakierie, who was A. I.d with a highly esteemed bull by the name of Richies Jace T-Bone-ET, came back into heat today. That isn't hugely cool especially considering that a T-Bone daughter was Reserve Grand Champion Heifer at the Nationals just days ago. However Neil, the much-trusted cow judge, recommended that I use a different bull on Makierie instead. As she has very good longevity bloodlines (her father was the tenth calf of his mother, Niks-or-Nothing JS Disney, and Bokmakierie's great-grandfather was Jas Hot) I've been advised to use a bull with good genetics for milk production, and she's a quite big cow so after a lot of umming and ahhing I've settled on Sunset Canyon Belvedere-ET.

This is one of my favourite parts of breeding Jerseys; painstakingly hand-picking the bulls to fit individual cows. I think it's something that only very small farmers can really do. For someone milking 200 cows it's not really practical to scrutinise every single one, but I only have nine cows in milk and that's a lot for me - I don't have any dry cows at the moment. Thankfully Neil is both knowledgeable and epically patient so even though he's been to judge shows overseas he's also quite willing to recommend a bull for my little 15-litre heifer, half of whose pedigree is somewhat dubious.

Our vet/hero Dr. Louis is doing a herd visit tomorrow. I have Babeica and Blue Moon in for their first pregnancy tests after A. I.; if they are confirmed in calf Blue Moon will be in calf to Maack Dairy Eclipes-P-ET and Babeica would be in calf to our own bull, Prospect Lancelot's King Arthur, who has Lemvig bloodlines. Borina, Firn Junior and Bestie are in for their post partum exams. Babeica's prospective owners were quite thrilled with her, so as soon as she is CIC she can look forward to a lazy, happy life as a beloved house cow. I wish I could find them all homes like that.

Borina has just come into heat for the first time after calving so in about three weeks' time she will be ready for A. I. too. She has good longevity bloodlines (Jas Hot and Rocket), plus she is a very tiny little thing lacking frame, her milk production is just a few steps away from awful and she has a very shallow udder, so she is getting Tollenaars Impuls Louie 260-ET, who is known for giving hugely productive cows (9500l during a first lactation! For a Jersey!) with huge frames. With that amount of milk I want to be careful with Louie because they'll break down so easily, but I feel quite safe with Borina's bloodlines.

I have no cows to calve until June. My average litres/day is going to hit rock bottom, but I'm looking forward to the June calves: Barbara is in calf to Ahlem Jace Epic-ET and then there's Freya, who's in calf to Eclipes (squeee!). Benita is unfortunately in calf to King Arthur, which isn't very cool, but I can't really say that until I've seen Arthur's calves in the parlour and our oldest of his heifers are only just ready to be inseminated.

Fiona is possibly in calf to Eclipes as well, she went over her first heat post A. I. without a squeak so God willing I will have more than one Eclipes calf; I hope so, I'm rather fond of Fiona.

Then there are two more open cows for whom I still have to pick bulls: Bestie (a Jas Hot) and Firn Junior (a Rocket). It's a toss-up between Louie and Eclipes; I may go for Louie on Bestie and Eclipes on Junior, but that still remains to be seen.

The milk recording results have just come back; I have not yet analysed them as carefully as I should, but I took a quick look at my three on milk recording (Bokmakierie, Babeica and Fiona). Fiona has an outstanding somatic cell count of 65 000; Babeica is good too at 95 000 but I find Bokmakierie's a little high at 222 000. She did have mastitis a short while back, so that could be the cause of the higher SCC. According to a University of Minnesota study on somatic cell counts, Babeica and Fiona have low counts at under 150 000; Bokmakierie's is "mid", at under 250 000.

I think the mastitis is possibly the cause, but we will be sending milk samples again next month and if the count is still high I'll take action, even if that only means asking the vet for a better explanation of SCC because to be absolutely honest I don't understand it too well myself.

On a final note, I am as proud as Punch (whoever that might be) because an advert for Joyful Jerseys has been published in the Jersey Journal. I'm absurdly proud. I've been playing at Jerseys since I can remember, and I've been the owner of a Jersey stud for a little more than four months, but somehow holding the smooth, shiny magazine in my hands and seeing my own little red cow Benita looking up at me, her picture framed by the words "Joyful Jerseys: Cows for Christ" made it all real. I'm really doing this now. This is really happening. Christ's Jersey stud is seriously under way.

Today's stats

Cows in milk: 9

Total litres produced: 136.6

Average litres per cow: 15.0

Top cow: Bokmakierie 22.0l