We had LT and Chupa castrated and Stinky Pete castrated and dehorned yesterday. As LT is a year old now, it was a job getting him into the squeeze chute. He was still moping around a bit at supper time chores last night, but no bleeding anymore. Chupa has barely noticed that anything is missing, but his tail is a bit tucked.
THe plan is to sell Stinky Pete, so I wanted his horns gone, as people don't want to buy horned steers. I was happy to see that the holes into his sinus cavities are quite small - about the size of a BB. When we had Horton dehorned last year at 4 months old, the holes were the size of a quarter. Petey is almost 9 months old. His bleeding (from both ends) has stopped as well.
In reality, the cold snap we are having is a blessing, as fly season has begun here. I'm hoping the boys heal up enough to avoid problems if it warms up again soon.
The neighbor's Brahma/Jersey cross cow calved early in the week, but the calf didn't make it. No one there milks - they only keep cows to produce calves for butchering. I asked Chou if I could try milking her, as she came from a dairy, but he kind of hemmed and hawed about it, so I didn't want to push it. We were there on Thursday to pick up firewood and I noticed the poor girl could barely walk because her udder was so hugely swollen. I told Chou that he should get a foster calf for her, but I don't know if he even would know how to graft one on.
On Thursday evening, he told Frank that I could milk her if I wanted to. So I loaded up my pails and rags, some hot water and a stool and Frank and I screwed on our courage and went to see what we could do for the poor girl. At first, she was kind of scared, not knowing why we were trying to cut her out from the herd (five yearling bulls and heifers), but when she saw the barn door was open she headed right in. After a bit of exploring, we were able to persuade her into an old stanchion. There is no headlock and the clip chains are gone, so we tied her in with a couple of ropes.
I spent some time rubbing her down and talking gently, while Frank got out a bale of good hay and fed her some corn. She was nervous and shaking, but eventually settled down, so I rubbed her udder gently. She lifted her right rear hoof a couple of times, but I gently admonished her and she settled down. When I touched her left rear quarter, she tried to brush me off, but nothing harsh.
She has big teats right now, but I think she will be easy to milk out once the swelling goes down. I was able to milk out two gallons of colostrum, but was a bit concerned because the left rear quarter was hard to milk and didn't have much of a stream. When I got up to check her, the other quarters had some give to them, which I was happy with, but the fourth quarter was hard, though not hot.
I decided to move to her left side and try to milk that back quarter out some more. After about five squirts, I saw that hoof fly. Before I had the chance to think, she'd hit me twice - on the backswing, thankfully - once on the back of my left thigh, and once on the ribs.
I'm bruised and sore, but bought some arnica gel and some pellets to take orally and they have helped a great deal. We took some time to pet her some more and get her settled down, then I sat down and milked her a bit more onto the ground, just so we could end the session on a good note. I fed the colostrum to the chickens.
I only plan on milking her once a day, as I don't need great quantities of milk. I suspect that the reason the Amish dairy sold this girl is because of that hind quarter - freshening with mastitis isn't a good sign. I will do what I can for that quarter, but feel it would be best to let it dry up and just milk out the others. I'm going to rub her down with cayenne pepper/peppermint oil today and will milk enough out of it to relieve pressure. Depending upon how she behaves, I may buy antibiotics to infuse into the teat.
Depending upon how her milk turns out, I may keep the cream off of it for my own use and feed the skim to our chickens and eventual pigs. I wasn't sure how I was going to afford to feed three pigs this year with only a gallon a day from Buttercup, so I think this is the Lord's answer to that one.
I am so blessed!
