Friday, February 8, 2013

Till the cows come home

Our cows came home two weeks ago! I never would have thought that I missed having cows at my house. But I sure did!

single cow
We moved the cows to another pasture for a few months to make feeding them easier. We finished up the silage at the other pasture, so our registered Angus cows came back to our part of the farm. The commercial (mixed-breed) cows stayed out at the other part of the farm.

We (and by “we,” I mean Farmer Doc, his dad, an uncle, and some cousins) rounded up all the cows, sorted out which ones we wanted to move, and loaded the girls onto a trailer. We backed the trailer into the barn at home.

back up the trailer
The girls got unloaded into the barn.

unload cows
And headed right outside.

turn the cows out
Then I promptly went out of town for a week. But, frankly, the cows don’t need to do much settling in. And they certainly don’t need my help. Everything was just where they had left it.
It’s been sunny and 60 degrees around here, so the girls are enjoying sunning themselves on the pasture. There’s not much grass for them to eat this time of year, so we are feeding them all the hay they want.

They hang out in groups.

cows on pasture
Or in pairs.

pair of cows
Or sometimes off by themselves. This one is hiding behind Cow Mountain (aka, the big pile of dirt from excavating our basement).

hiding cow
“I’m not fat. I’m just pregnant. You try carrying a 90-pound calf, and show me how your belly looks!”

pregnant cow
Ooh… she’s grouchy. She’s due sometime in the next two weeks, so maybe we’ll cut her some slack.

PS – That means baby season is coming up! I love calving season!

(Yeah… Remind me that I said that the next time I stay up to take care of a sick calf in the middle of the night…)

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