Friday, April 27, 2018

Little opportunist

As you well know, our cow Amy has been nursing two calves (as well as providing us with an odd quart of milk a couple times a week). Little orphaned Anna is doing fine and everyone's settling into a routine.


As a reward for Amy's patience as well as to supplement her nutrition, we purchased a couple bags of COB (corn-oats-barley) with molasses.


Needless to say, Amy thinks this is a spiffy idea.


But she's not the only one who likes COB. This morning I noticed a little opportunist enjoying the bounty.



Granted, at the moment the bags of COB are just leaning against the porch, so I can't blame the chipmunk for taking advantage of the opportunity.


But yeah, time to put the COB out of reach.

9 comments:

  1. Very glad to see that the calves and Amy have settled down into a routine. That will make your job much more pleasant. Thanks to Amy inherententing her momma's easy going gene.

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  2. Thought about changing Anna's name slightly to Annie so you have a little orphan Annie? ;)

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  3. Well duh, we knew that would happen didn't we? Leave a sack of grain feed on the porch and you're lucky it's not torn open, strewn around and nearly gone by morning around here. Of course we have raccoons and skunks by the ton. Wish it was only chipmonks. At least they're cute and don't fight on your roof at 1 a.m.

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  4. Is there anything cuter than a chipmunk? Yes, I know they are a pain in the ****, but they are so darn cute!!!

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  5. Going to laugh if that chipmunk grows up to about 50 lbs and goes around growling and harassing the coyotes.

    Huggs..

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  6. Glad everything is working out okay for you Patrice with little Anna. Sure makes life a bit easier and a big sigh of relief I would imagine. They're so cute and Amy is being a great Mom to both. Good treats to eat helps! Grateful that all has worked out so far for everyone. God Bless all of you

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  7. Chipmunks are cuter than squirrels but eat through anything. We have black squirrels here on the west side of the cascades that chewed an 8 inch hole through our trash lid to get to the "good stuff". We have seen them scampering down the driveway with plastic bags of garbage in their mouth!

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  8. In my garage a chippie chewed through the plastic cap on a can of acetone. I have no idea of what it thought it was doing.
    Especially when there was the little pile of good bird seed that I place on the floor for it to eat.

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  9. If you should ever have this problem again with losing a cow after she has had a calf you can switch them over to another cow which is nursing another calf.

    The trick for getting the cow to accept the new calf, tie her up where she has limited ability to kick at the calves. The orphan calf will nurse along with the cows calf, after 7-10 days have passed the calf, which was an orphan will have the smell of the mother through her milk. She will no longer reject the calf.

    Sorry I had forgotten this, my dad taught this to me when we had cow which produced to much milk for her only calf. He would purchase week old calves which had been separated from the mother(s). Then introduce the new calf to this cow for nursing, there by reducing the amount of milk keeping the calves from having scours.

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