Old Cow had Twins!

[rtimgray]

Just had to pass on some good news-

I had put one of my old cows up at the barn a couple of weeks ago because I knew that she was close to calving and that way I could keep an eye on here in case she had trouble.
The cow (named "Ditto") is about 15 years old and was the first calf that was born at our farm (and the daughter of my first cow "Baby It").

Anyway, about 10:00 on Saturday morning I drove by and saw that she had a bag of water hanging out and went to check and saw that she already had given birth to a calf. I thought that was odd, so I checked her and sure enough there was another calf this in there. Unfortunately, it was breach.

I called our local vet (and it can't get much more local - he lives a 1/2 mile up the road and just built a new clinic). He was able to come over in a few minutes and pulled the second calf, which turned out to be fine. I've only every successfully pulled on breach calf before, so I thought it was best to get pro help, especially since he was very accessible and the cow is so old (and a pet, if I hadn't mentioned that).

Anyway, Mama and both babies are fine. We got two bull calves - one solid black and one black with white face and belly. Names are Beavis and Butthead.

I'll be bottle feeding them - but I usually have to bottle feed Ditto's babies for a few weeks because her bag gets so large (like a holstein's bag) and the calves have trouble getting onto it for a while. Ditto is a small angus mix - she's only about 4' tall and about 800 lbs.

I don't know how many more calves I'll get from Ditto, but she did good this weekend.

 

[MossRoad]

Congratulations! :thumbsup:

 

[Bird]

I don't know how many more calves I'll get from Ditto, but she did good this weekend.

Yep, I'd say she did.

 

[TBDonnelly]

Hey, A 'twoforone' special.:thumbsup: A double Ditto. That's a lot of bull.

Congrats and good luck with the newborns!

Don

 

[schmism]

Names are Beavis and Butthead.

classic!

 

[Mousefield]

Glad mom and the little ones are doing fine. Nice story on a Monday morning. :thumbsup:

 

[jayste]

Hey, A 'twoforone' special.:thumbsup: A double Ditto. That's a lot of bull.

Congrats and good luck with the newborns!

Don

Hahaha! DITTO!

 

[rtimgray]

Thanks for the kind words. A lot of times we post when we have problems, so I thought it would be good to post with just some good news.

Both babies are adapting to their bottles well - I was able to feed them both at the same time this morning. And I'm a morning person, but I've gotta be at work at 6:00 AM, so I've now gotta get up a 1/2 hour earlier to feed the boys. I'm really glad I ran electricity to the barn so that I've at least got lights!

Take care.

 

[RoyJackson]

Good for you, the old girl and her two offspring!!!
Now we need pics of the happy mom and her two kids!

So, a cow as a pet? How does she act as a pet? Does she come to you when you call her or anything like that?

 

[Bird]

So, a cow as a pet? How does she act as a pet? Does she come to you when you call her or anything like that?

Roy, those cows have different personalities just as humans do. I was 5 years old when my Dad bought a Jersey milk cow named Popeye. A very gentle cow . . except . . she wanted to fight my mother and mother was scared of her. Dad talked to the previous owner and the only thing they could figure out was that the cow had never seen a woman in a dress, and in those days, my mother did not own or wear slacks. Dad was gone overnight on his job one night a week, so that night, and the next morning, I'd take Popeye into the barn, put out her feed, then stand there and pet her where she couldn't turn her head and see, then mother would come in, sit down, milk her, and get up and leave. I could put a rope on her horns and lead her anywhere. Then when I was in the first grade of school, Popeye got out of the pasture and was grazing along the highway one day. Mother and her best friend (also in a dress) went to try to drive her up to the house, but Popeye chased them through the fence. When I got home from school, I went and put a rope on her horns and led her home.

So Dad got her bred to a Jersey bull, got lucky and got a heifer that we named Sweetpea, and when she was old enough to have a calf and we started milking her, Dad sold Popeye and mother couldn't have been happier. Of course Sweetpea was a family pet from the time she was born, and yes she'd not only come when called, but would come to be petted and follow us around if we went into the pasture.

 

[RoyJackson]

That was a great post, Bird!!
Thank you for posting it!

 

[jayste]

Roy, those cows have different personalities just as humans do. I was 5 years old when my Dad bought a Jersey milk cow named Popeye. A very gentle cow . . except . . she wanted to fight my mother and mother was scared of her. Dad talked to the previous owner and the only thing they could figure out was that the cow had never seen a woman in a dress, and in those days, my mother did not own or wear slacks. Dad was gone overnight on his job one night a week, so that night, and the next morning, I'd take Popeye into the barn, put out her feed, then stand there and pet her where she couldn't turn her head and see, then mother would come in, sit down, milk her, and get up and leave. I could put a rope on her horns and lead her anywhere. Then when I was in the first grade of school, Popeye got out of the pasture and was grazing along the highway one day. Mother and her best friend (also in a dress) went to try to drive her up to the house, but Popeye chased them through the fence. When I got home from school, I went and put a rope on her horns and led her home.

So Dad got her bred to a Jersey bull, got lucky and got a heifer that we named Sweetpea, and when she was old enough to have a calf and we started milking her, Dad sold Popeye and mother couldn't have been happier. Of course Sweetpea was a family pet from the time she was born, and yes she'd not only come when called, but would come to be petted and follow us around if we went into the pasture.

Bird, this brings back a memory of a cow my inlaws used to have. She was Jersey as well and they called her "'ol Jerz". Gave the best milk too. Anyway, my MIL could never milk her either. Everytime she tried to milk her old Jerz would fight her. FIL would always have to do it. Knowing my FIL and his ways I know for a fact that cow had good milk because if not she'd be worked over with a 2x4 and sent to the sale barn!

 

[Bird]

Yep, Jay, your FIL sounds like my Dad. If the cow hadn't produced, she'd have been gone. We had another very unusual experience with a cow. When my granddad moved into town, he still had a good sized place and kept his milk cow for awhile. When he finally got rid of the milk cow and sold the farm, he still had a little Guernsey heifer calf that he brought into town. Lots of kids walked back and forth by his place to and from school and they liked to tease that heifer through the fence or throw things at her. She was a good looking little Guernsey and my graddad got her bred and said he'd try to sell her and the calf later. Well, the kids succeeded in making that heifer get mean and want to fight. So before time for the calf to be born, my granddad brought her out to our place to see if we could gentle her a bit so she could be milked when the calf was born. So dad & I tried to work with her a little each day; tried to touch and pet her and pretend we were milking her and making no headway. She just wanted to fight. I was dreading the day for the calf to be born because a lot of cows get meaner and more protective of a new calf. And then we experienced the weirdest thing I ever saw with a cow. When that calf was born, the cow immediately became as gentle as any cow you ever saw; never objected to us handling the calf, would stand still to be milked, etc. I just literally could not believe our good luck.

Another thing about my Dad was that he did not allow a kid to be afraid of a cow. He said to avoid bulls because they'll run right through you and it was not only OK, but mandatory to be afraid of and cautious with bulls, but not cows. He said a cow will come at you with her head down and all you have to do it kick her right on the end of her nose and she'll stop and jerk her head up. It always worked, but sometimes I was terrified having to do that. Now I don't think that would work with range cows that have run loose, but at least it worked with the dairy cows we were around.

 

[rtimgray]

Good for you, the old girl and her two offspring!!!
Now we need pics of the happy mom and her two kids!

So, a cow as a pet? How does she act as a pet? Does she come to you when you call her or anything like that?

In all seriousness, I think a pet cow is kind of like a pet cat. It doesn't really do any tricks, it doesn't really like you as much as you like it, and it poops in all the wrong places.

Actually, maybe cows are a little better than cats, because I've never had a cow throw up in my good shoes!

We've got about 20 cows, and probably about half are "pets" to some degree. That is to say that pretty much anybody can walk up to them in the field and touch them and they don't seem to care. The other half are pretty easy to work with, but they're not that tame.

Ditto, along with a heifer named "Stitch", are the to biggest pets. They will actually come to me or my wife when we call their name. Alot of times they come when we don't call them. They both grew up as bottle babies, and I have a tendency to continue to bring bottles to them in the field even after they are well past weaning age. Stitch is about 700 lbs and will still nurse a bottle. Ditto (the cow with the twins) will give it a shot, but has finally lost interest.

It's good to have tame or pet cattle when you need to work them or mess around with them. Alot of times I can round up Ditto and Stitch and some of the other tame ones and get some of the less cooperative ones with them and herd them all into the pen at the barn just so I can get the less cooperative ones easier. The bad part of a pet cow is that if one ever "gets down" (like after a rough birth or gets knocked down by other cows, etc.), they are really hard to convince to get up (even with a hot stick) because they have no fear of people.

All in all, I really like my pet cows.

I will try to get a couple of pics of the boys today. Butthead is taking his bottle morning and afternoon, while Beavis is only taking one a day, but he is nursing Ditto, so that's better than bottle anyday.