In my blog about Papa Karl you will learn some of how it came to be that we have the largest herd of Jersey cattle in the State of Wyoming (at least I believe this to still be the case). As Paul Harvey use to say, here's, "the rest of the story".
When my late husband Jon went back to WI and purchased half a herd of Jersey dairy cattle from Papa Karl, he loaded them up, placed them on a semi and shipped them to me the third week of March and then stayed in WI for another week. As Papa Karl recalls he questioned Jon as to the soundness of such a choice and Jon responded,"she competent".
Well, I must tell you, I sure didn't feel competent at five that evening, when 35 head of cattle and 20 pigs showed up. The driver, bless his soul, and I carried those twenty - 35 pound weaner pigs 150 feet off the truck and to their pen. Now, that may not sound like much, but if you want to know what it's like, find the nearest kindergartner and try kidnapping them, kicking and squealing in your ear the whole way - for just the distance across the playground, and see how you or they like it.
Then there were the eleven heifers. They were no problem. Send them out to pasture and feed them some hay. Easy peasy as my son likes to say. But, then the fun really began. I had fourteen hungry calves and 10 cows with full udders that hadn't been milked in 24 hours. I turned them in together and thought that would be that. Well it wasn't. Those cows had never raised their own calves and those calves had never had a mama of their own. Jon had put the calves on the cows while the cows were in their own milk barn with their heads in a stantion and no chance to go anywhere. Now, in my corral, they weren't about to stand still and let those calves nurse and the calves weren't to sure if this was supper or just a good thrashing.
I had borrowed a milking machine, from my High School Ag teacher (Duane Watkins) - whose kids had raised dairy animals for 4-H and FFA; I thought well, I'll just milk them out. But, I couldn't get the machine to hold a vacuum and the cows wanted nothing to do with going into my stantion. I learned that night a very important lesson about dairy cows. They like routine. They like everything to be the same every day; don't move anything or they will balk and get nervous. When they're nervous, look out, they won't let their milk down and they will poop - all over the place. They didn't know who I was and wanted nothing to do with me, and trust me, I'm good with animals! By the end of my attempts, I had been pushed, shoved, kicked, peed and pooped on. At ten that night, I gave up. I just couldn't do any more. Jon couldn't understand my difficulties - they had all been perfect angels at Karl's. I told him that if I didn't start getting some empathy from him, he could just stay in Wisconsin. A week later, when he did get back, he again wondered what all the fuss was about. By then, I had them all mothered up and was milking once a day and things were running smooth. Arrrg!
When my late husband Jon went back to WI and purchased half a herd of Jersey dairy cattle from Papa Karl, he loaded them up, placed them on a semi and shipped them to me the third week of March and then stayed in WI for another week. As Papa Karl recalls he questioned Jon as to the soundness of such a choice and Jon responded,"she competent".
Well, I must tell you, I sure didn't feel competent at five that evening, when 35 head of cattle and 20 pigs showed up. The driver, bless his soul, and I carried those twenty - 35 pound weaner pigs 150 feet off the truck and to their pen. Now, that may not sound like much, but if you want to know what it's like, find the nearest kindergartner and try kidnapping them, kicking and squealing in your ear the whole way - for just the distance across the playground, and see how you or they like it.
Then there were the eleven heifers. They were no problem. Send them out to pasture and feed them some hay. Easy peasy as my son likes to say. But, then the fun really began. I had fourteen hungry calves and 10 cows with full udders that hadn't been milked in 24 hours. I turned them in together and thought that would be that. Well it wasn't. Those cows had never raised their own calves and those calves had never had a mama of their own. Jon had put the calves on the cows while the cows were in their own milk barn with their heads in a stantion and no chance to go anywhere. Now, in my corral, they weren't about to stand still and let those calves nurse and the calves weren't to sure if this was supper or just a good thrashing.
I had borrowed a milking machine, from my High School Ag teacher (Duane Watkins) - whose kids had raised dairy animals for 4-H and FFA; I thought well, I'll just milk them out. But, I couldn't get the machine to hold a vacuum and the cows wanted nothing to do with going into my stantion. I learned that night a very important lesson about dairy cows. They like routine. They like everything to be the same every day; don't move anything or they will balk and get nervous. When they're nervous, look out, they won't let their milk down and they will poop - all over the place. They didn't know who I was and wanted nothing to do with me, and trust me, I'm good with animals! By the end of my attempts, I had been pushed, shoved, kicked, peed and pooped on. At ten that night, I gave up. I just couldn't do any more. Jon couldn't understand my difficulties - they had all been perfect angels at Karl's. I told him that if I didn't start getting some empathy from him, he could just stay in Wisconsin. A week later, when he did get back, he again wondered what all the fuss was about. By then, I had them all mothered up and was milking once a day and things were running smooth. Arrrg!
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