heat in Jersey cow

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I was reading some of the entries about cows, and I have a couple of questions of my own. My Jersey cow, Ginny, was bred when I bought her, so they said, but I couldn't tell. She mounted the other cows in heat and let them mount her. Until she was eight months pregnant and too big to balance herself, she did this, and kept me guessing right until she bagged up. She had a beautiful calf, gave milk for 18 months on that freshening. Now she is bred again, and she seems to be following the same pattern. At least, she is supposed to be bred. She ran with the bull for at least three heat cycles. Has anyone else's cow done this?

My other Jersey cow, Ollie, was skin and bones when I bought her at a local auction. She had a big old calf on her that had chewed her udder up trying to get a little milk. One of her teats was bitten half off, and she had scabs all over what was a very small udder. No one wanted to bid on her, and suddenly I just had to have her! Everyone thought I was crazy. I brought Ollie home, and started feeding her gradually. She was starving. I fed her for about two weeks, and then wormed her with dairy pour-on wormer, and every day I massaged her udder with udder balm. All the scabs came off, and the injured teat healed with a big dent in it and was thin. Ollie's milk came back in a little, about a half gallon a day, for a few months, and then I let her dry up. When I had had her about six months, I noticed her sides were getting big, and then found out she was bred when I bought her, 17 days bred it turned out. She had a beautiful bull calf. Her udder filled out greater than I ever expected, and she has been a joy to milk. You can't even tell that the one teat was ever damaged. I have weaned her own calf at three months (he weighed 330 lbs.), a Holstein heifer at four months that brought a hefty price at the market, and another heifer at three months. Now in her tenth month of lactation, she is still giving three gallons of milk a day; we have just purchased another bull calf for her to adopt. Ollie is a jewel! Surely, no one believed that the day I bought her. Just wanted to share that.

One more thing. Has anyone else noticed the difference in the way the cream rises on the milk when you are only hand milking, and when you are hand milking plus letting a calf suck? When no calf is sucking for several days, and we are milking twice a day, the cream sometimes rises two inches thick on top. When we milk once a day, and let the calf run with the cow the rest of the day, our milk only has about 1/2 inch of cream to rise. Calves we have tried to raise by using cow milk in a bottle never are as thrifty as those on the cow. Could it be this difference in the cream content?

-- Lela Picking (Stllwtrs55@aol.com), July 10, 2000

Answers

I don't think it's too unusual for bred cows to ride like in heat.

I don't know about the cream and nursing calves.

What I wanted to say mostly refers to Ollie. My dad ran a 300-cow Holstien dairy for just short of 50 years and when a cow grew old and unproductive he would sell her at the market. However, now and then he would have a cow that had been an especially good producer, a gentle cow and had produced for an especially long time. Those cows were retired to the back pasture and allowed to live a long natural life span. They were special and were rewarded for that. Your story of Ollie reminds me of some of those cows.

Also, I've seen cows' teats cut nearly off by a fence or piece of tin that blew off a barn and with treatment, would heal up and produce again.

-- Joe Cole (jcole@apha.com), July 11, 2000.


There are cows called 'bullers' who continually ride other cows. They are something like the equivalent of a female bull dyke.

Several years ago I had a yearling bull. He didn't seem to pay any attention to cows, but just about every time my herd bull would put his head down to eat, the yearling would ride him. My neighbor said it was a dominance thing, but to this day I think he was gay. He went to market.

-- Ken Scharabok (scharabo@aol.com), July 11, 2000.


I dont know about cream content being affected by having a calf on a cow, but I do know that the fat content of milk is greater at the end of a lactation, in comparison to what it is at the beginning. I have a Jersey, in her 5th week of her 4th lactation. Her heifer calf is running with her. I bought this cow last year at the beginning of July. The cream on top of the milk was comparable then to what it is now. She gives 5 gallons a day above what the calf is taking, and is skin and bones. I feed her 14 lbs of high-energy dairy feed a day, plus she is on very good pasture.I dont want to feed her any more, because I am afraid she will get an acid gut. I dont know what to do to keep her from getting in too poor a condition. Would you have any suggestions?

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), May 02, 2001.

We have been raising miniature jersey aand miniature guernseys for 21 yrs. Each cow has its own personality. It's not uncommon for a cow to have a false heat cycle at about the 3rd month of pregnacey. And besides, maybe your cow just likes to dance. as for Ollie, good job! Some times a little love and kindness pays BIG dividends. Now for the cream, milking twice a day, you get all the milk. Let the calf run with the cow and you get whats left. The calf will nurse a small amount many times a day. This is why a calf does much better running with a cow as opposed to twice a day bottle feeding.

-- Nathan Harris Sr. (barnyard_mini@yahoo.com), May 04, 2001.

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