Ignorance

On Tuesday next week, all the cows will be sold. The (probably) last group of little calves were taken away last Tuesday. This morning our older calves, including the ones we trained, went to another farm.

 

We’ve been on this farm for seven months, which is the longest time we’ve spent in one place in eight years, and the longest time we’ve spent in one place in Australia ever. And for the first time in all our travels, I am not actually eager to leave. I’ve tamed three cows while we were here. They were all wild when we arrived but I eventually could pat these three, and feed them grass from my hand. But one by one, they’re being sold and I’m saying goodbye. I only have one left now, “Coconut Twist,” a tall mostly white cow with sawn off horns. And within a week, I’ll be losing her too.

 

And then there’s the twenty calves we raised from wobbly newborns to now, shiny fatties nearly chest high. They trust people so much. We still regularly haltered our four special ones and walk them around the property to eat green grass. This morning they all went to a different farm. Seeing my pretty, fluffy Alianovna leave after raising her for six months was so, so sad.

Probably the biggest thing I’ve learned here, is that cows are not stupid. Society is ignorant. Calling someone a cow infers that they are fat, stupid, ugly. But the truth is cows are none of those things. Fat, maybe, at least the pregnant ones are, but they are definitely not ugly, or stupid. Of course, as with any species there will be exceptions, but cows in general are beautiful, intelligent animals. They have friends within the herd. They get upset when they’re alone. They can learn tricks, commands, behaviours. They have spots they love to be scratched in – under the jaw, on the neck, Alianovna even enjoyed her front legs being brushed. They have their own likes and dislikes, attitudes, reactions. And I love them.

If I could have brought Alianovna, I would. But she was not for sale, and if she was, she’d cost nearly $1000 right now, and as long as she remains healthy, the cost will continue to rise the bigger she gets, until she hits the tipping point to older cow and then it drops again. And hay also costs so much and is hard to get your hands on because everyone needs it.

 

The good news though is that we have another job lined up already, on a dairy farm only about 20 minutes from where we are now. We’ll start moving our stuff out there soon, at which time I’ll get better photos that aren’t taken through a smudgy window.

 

Meanwhile, on April 6, Skuggi had his first puppy school class. And it was a disaster. Skuggi completely shut down for the whole hour, refused treats, hid his face and peed all over the floor when another puppy approached him. He didn't want people contact either, only to be held by me and pretend he did not exist.

The video below, and the photo on the left, was taken just after class 3. He'd spent the class observing everything, he took treats, wagged his tail nearly the entire time, demonstrated his obedience for the class, and jumped excitedly all over the instructor. He also kept trying to shove his nose into the pocket of the lady sitting next to us to steal treats lol

I could not be more proud of my boy.

Puppy School With Skuggi (link to video)

Moving Right Along

Originally posted at www.herodogsblog.tumblr.com on 24 March, 2016.

Yesterday afternoon the boss called to say that the farm has finally been sold. We have just four weeks until we have to move back into the bus again.

It will be hard to leave. For six months we’ve worked here, taming cows, raising calves. I will miss my trained calf Alianovna, who I haven’t had time to walk since I got Skuggi and has now outgrown the halter I brought her for Christmas anyway (it was too big for her then!). I’ll miss the tamed milking cows Coconut Twist and One Fifty (AKA Dufflepud). I’ll miss having calves suck on top of my gumboots, miss the cows grabbing hay and grass from my hand with their ridiculously long tongues, miss riding the motorbike, morning walks to the mailbox, the dawn sky on fire. I’ll miss so much about living here.

But at the same time it’s been difficult. It’s calving season, and every day is a struggle. Broken bones, blood soaked into floorboards, dead eyes, tiny broken bodies. Every time a cow goes into labour there’s a 50/50 chance of something going wrong.

We pulled out a calf one night in the pouring rain, a big gold boy. Despite the downpour I still worked up a sweat under my rain jacket. He never took a breath. His mother lay exhausted on the concrete, oblivious to the loss of her baby, and I grieved for her.

Less than twenty-four hours later it was one hour of tension as a heifer took her time calving. Right about the time I thought it was going to be another loss, she got serious and within a few minutes, a wet bundle slid out into the windy world, wriggling and sneezing. It was a beautiful sight.

Dairy farming is both horror and happiness, grief and gratitude, separated only by the space of a second.

And at the end of the day, it will be both relief and regret I feel as we move on.

Moved

If you're interested in our adventures, go check out my new blog at www.herodogs.tumblr.com. Unfortunately due to poor internet connection I'm not able to upload my blogs to Blogspot without a whole lot of frustration. :(

I may return to this blog at some point, but for now all updates will be over at Tumblr.

Shadow

Not a whole lot has been happening lately. The farm has been for sale since we got here, as are all the cows, and despite a few people coming to look at it nobody's really been interested. The internet is still awful so it's taken me ages to get this post published, even with only one photo.

 

 

On February 3, we picked up Killarah Shadowed Hero (aka Skuggi, pronounced “skoogee” which is Icelandic for shadow) from the airport. He’s a purebred Koolie from a breeder in NSW and he’s now twelve weeks old. Hopefully when he is older he’ll be able to take over Sparkie’s service dog jobs as she retires.

 

 

We still have no grass here. Hopefully once summer ends we’ll finally get some proper rain. The cows are looking pretty skinny now and the boss can’t afford to give them any more hay than what we’re already giving them because the milk processers aren't paying enough for the milk. The calves though are looking fat and shiny, despite only getting grain and hay.

 

We’re less than two weeks out from the start of calving so things are about to get really busy.

Desert

By this day in 2015, this area had gotten just over 60mm of rain. So far this year we have only had 0.2mm. The grass is dying, brown and short. We’re feeding hay to all our stock because there’s literally nothing else for them to eat.

Photos on the left taken in September last year, photos on the right taken in December, in the same area.

 

We’ve started drying off cows in preparation for the next calving. The first calf is due on March 10. And within the next three weeks from then, there are over 100 others due. We’re still feeding milk to most of the calves that were born in Sept/Oct. A group of the oldest “milk mob” were weaned a few weeks ago. Today the three biggest from that group joined the “pizza mob” (calves from March calving last year) and were sent away to a place where they will get some better grass than what we have here.

 

So that’s my life right now. There’s something else that I didn’t mention, because he deserves his own blog post with a heap of photos, which I don’t have yet.

Video - Dairy Farm Life || "Never Give Up"

It has been a tough year but there are always happy moments if I look hard enough. Here is a video showing some of those moments on the farm over the last 100 days. (Yes, as of Christmas Eve we have been on this farm for 100 days!)

 

 

More videos coming soon: "Christmas On The Dairy Farm" and "2015 || A Year In Review."

Cowgirls

I’ve been trying to stay more positive since my last post. It was a difficult time, but I struggled on and things got better. We did not lose any more cows. We got solid days off to go shopping. The rest of the Jersey springer cows had girl calves.

 

On the afternoon of Friday the 13th, I was out bringing in the cows for milking when I noticed a bunch of them stopping and grouping together. When I got closer all but one moved off. She was a Jersey and clearly unhappy about something, sending death glares at Sparkie as my little dog went up to move her on. When the cow dropped her head to sniff something in the grass, that’s when I realized what was happening. She had a calf. A beautiful Jersey calf. Just my luck it turned out to be a beautiful Jersey bull calf. Just when I thought it was over. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Calving season is over and the milking herd doesn’t just drop calves between milkings. I tried not to get attached to him, knowing he wouldn’t be around long, but from the moment I saw him lying in the grass at his mother’s feet, I loved him. So I named him Brucey and nobody held back giving him the love he deserved, until Tom took him away when he was eleven days old. He was adorable and innocent and I wish I could have saved him somehow. But it wasn’t to be.

 

The Friesian bull calves have all been sent to their new home (being raised on another farm by a family, who take good care of them). The heifers are all out in the paddock. The calf shed is empty and in the process of being cleaned out in preparation for the next calving season, beginning in March next year.

 

The supposed “final” calf of the season was born on October 31. She was the tiniest, most nervous little calf we’ve had. Attempting to catch her in the paddock was a fail – she got loose from Daddy and climbed through a fence; she was only one day old. The first time I got in the pen with her she tried to kick me. She was spooked by everything and terrified of people. It took a long time to gain her trust but we succeeded. She is gentle and affectionate but with a mischievous side, and I realize now that everything I ever thought about cows was wrong. The more time I spend with her, and with our friendly young cow “Tip,” or with the laidback milking cow “One-Fifty,” or just observing interactions in the herd, the more I notice just how smart they are. They have personalities, likes and dislikes beyond just searching out food. They are smart and kind and care about other cows. When a cow falls down in the bale, the cows coming up behind her aren’t just blindly stepping on her in a hurry to the grain like I used to think they were. No, they’re actually being pushed forward by the cows behind them, who can’t see the cow on the ground. When a new calf is born and every cow wants to stop and sniff it all over, they’re not just idiots who’ve forgotten what a calf is. Don’t humans want to have a look at a friend’s new baby, no matter how many others they’ve seen before? Cows are not dumb, none of them, and they do not deserve that stereotype.

We now have four calves that can walk on a lead, have their feet picked up, and stand still for brushing, and mostly come when called in the paddock – pictured below with their handler/trainer, from left to right; four week old Alianovna, five week old Pepper, six week old Jane, and nearly seven week old Karen. These girls are going to be the quietest cows in the milking shed in a couple of years! I only wish we had time to train them all.