Our calves are getting big…by big I mean they are stronger than I am! So, being that I can’t control them by strength, routine is very important to my being able to be productive in the moving of them to different areas on the farm: i.e, from the pasture to the barn, barn to pasture, barn stall to mama, mama to pasture, mama to barn stall…they know what to expect. For the most part, I have found that if my cattle know what to expect, they are pretty easy to get along with.
Going along with that idea, I know my cattle pretty well. Mocha will escape if you give her the chance (and twice in recent weeks, she has taken the opportunity to roam the barn and dig into the hay bales when the gate to her stall wasn’t latched completely. Mocha likes things a certain way…I only milk from one side of her…she will kick me if I try to milk from the other side. She has to finish ALL of her feed before she is willing to comply with being secured for milking.
Mocha is also a bully. She has a thing against our bull calves. She bullied Hershey when he was a calf and she was still pregnant with Cocoa. She was jealous of the attention he received from his mama, Heidi, who was then her best buddy. And then, it became a mutual irritation relationship and they equally and eagerly antagonized each other. One day when Hershey was bigger, they were passing by each other in the pasture and he took off after her. Guess he had a long memory and saw his chance to get her back of all her aggression when he was a calf.
Now we have a “Hershey Jr.” (aka Oreo). He is so much like Hershey was when Hershey was younger; same loving personality and same inquisitive nature and Mocha seems to have the same disdain for him that she had for Hershey. His personality is very different from Truffle who is friendly yet forceful and quick and pushes ahead to wherever she wants to go. He is more laid back, slow and methodical…much like his mama.
Personalities aside, we have remarked this week that the calves are looking more and more alike. Oreo (Jersey’s calf) was born a very dark chocolate brown and quickly turned darker until he was black (thankfully he still has his little white “cream filling” spot) on his underbelly. Truffle (Mocha’s calf) was born a lighter chocolate brown with grayish overtones. As they have grown over the last few months, they have both become very dark, black, even. Truffle has more of the Jersey cow profile and Oreo’s face looks like an Angus. As I look into their eyes each morning and evening and know them so well, I didn’t pay any attention when someone said earlier this week “Some day we are not going to be able to tell them apart and we will get them mixed up.” “NO WAY”, I retorted! “I won’t get them mixed up!” HA!
Now, back to this morning…I milked out Mocha as normal and went over to help Jeff bring Truffle into the stall to help get the milk flowing again. Truffle, regardless of when she ate last, is always thankful for another chance to nurse. Jeff was having trouble getting the lead rope on her so I helped him and then tried to lead her out. I thought she was acting weird, but sometimes they do! I led “her” into Mocha’s stall, exclaiming how big she was getting and tried to get her to drink…but she wanted nothing to do with Mocha. I thought (and even said to Jeff) that it was really odd that she wouldn’t want to drink but I kept trying.
Then it hit me!!!! We had brought Oreo in to nurse off of Mocha and he was smart enough NOT to risk his life to do so! We tried and tried and he absolutely refused! Now I know he refused with good reason! He didn’t want what he knew would be a firm kick instead of the sweet reward of mama’s milk! I quickly removed a totally confused Oreo from harm’s way and took him back to the stall and brought Truffle instead. She didn’t disappoint…she was eager to drink from her mama, just as she always is.
I have exclaimed over and over since then how I can’t believe I actually couldn’t tell the difference between them and brought the wrong calf to Mocha. When we took Oreo in to nurse off of Jersey, he seemed so relieved! He didn’t wait for a second invitation and eagerly went to the safety of his mama for his nourishment!
Hope you have enjoyed this story of mistaken identity. Can you imagine what it will be like next year if we have three or four calves who are all similar in color?
Perhaps you could put a spot of paint somewhere. When E and G were infants, we painted E’s pinky nail in order to be sure we weren’t feeding the same baby every time.
Wonder where we could do that?? 🙂
now Oreo has developed little horn buds, so all we have to do to tell them apart quickly is pet his head!