Cow in the freezer and milking woes

Early in the morning on August 18, a mobile butcher came in and dispatched Filet, our eight-year-old Angus cow.

Filet had been earmarked for the freezer since we got her. She was a former range cow and was still, even after having her for 18 months, extremely stand-offish. Not aggressive, just not friendly. As an older animal, we knew she wouldn't be worth much more than ground beef (and tenderloin!).

For the actual dispatching, we had her corralled in this "chute" on the south side of the barn.

The animals are very familiar with this chute – it's usually open – so Filet experienced no stress or anxiety when we shooed her in around 5:45 am Monday morning. I didn't milk Maggie that morning, either, but just left Stormy (Maggie's calf) out of her pen for the night. Don and I shooed the rest of the herd into another pasture (including her six-month-old calf Romeo) until the deed was done.

Who was stressed and anxious in the days leading up to the slaughter was ME. I don't like killing things anyway, but there was also a LOT of residual stress left over from our last home, where we had a bunch of cobbled-together and often ineffective methods of confining animals before the butchers arrived, and several times animals escaped. Ug, I hate burchering days.

This is the first time we've had an animal butchered here in our new home, using the services of a new (to us) butcher. The actual dispatching is done by one party (an independent mobile dispatcher) and the hanging and cutting is done by a butchering business in a nearby town.

Since the mobile dispatcher lives just a short distance away, we asked him to drop by in advance so he could look over our setup and make sure everything was satisfactory.

You never met a nicer fellow than this dispatcher – knowledgeable and professional. He assured us the setup was fine. The plan was to drop Filet, bleed her out, then take the carcass to the butcher shop, where it will hang for 10 or 12 days before being cut up.

To say it went smooth as silk is to only hint at how easy it was. This morning Don and I hit the corral about 20 minutes before the butcher was due to show up (which he did promptly at 6 am), shooed Filet into the chute and shooed the rest of the livestock into the sacrifice pasture. It took five minutes and no one was the slightest bit alarmed.

The mobile dispatcher did the job with one bullet. Don (who was out with him) said Filet dropped like a rock and never knew what hit her. In other words, extremely fast and humane.

Naturally this leaves Romeo (and Mignon, her yearling calf) bereft of their mama, so there's that. Romeo is six months old, so plenty old enough to wean, but we wondered how he would react.

The first day, he didn't even appear to notice she was missing. Here's Romeo and Mignon, just hanging around in the sacrifice pasture below the barn.

In fact, except for a few bellows here and there, Romeo has done absolutely fine. It's been over a week now, and he doesn't appear to miss his mama at all.

Interestingly, the whole dynamic of the barn has changed now. Filet was unquestionably the alpha cow. To be honest, she was something of a bully to the other animals, including our Jersey Maggie. Now Maggie, as senior animal, has stepped into the role of alpha, and she's much nicer. In short, things are a lot calmer at the feed box.

However (and on a homestead, there's always as "however"), Romeo has found a major way to be obnoxious. He's discovered Maggie has milk. And since almost all Jerseys are what we call "universal donors" (meaning, very generous with their milk), he's been diving for the udder the moment I release Maggie from the milking stall each morning.

Here Stormy (Maggie's calf) is on the left, and Romeo is on the right.

This morning, I overslept a bit and didn't make it out to the barn until about 6:10 am. Stormy, of course, was locked away in the calf pen, but Romeo was avidly slurping away on Maggie. I got Maggie into the milking stall (forcibly locking Romeo out – he wanted to follow!) and settled down to milk Maggie.

I shouldn't have wasted my time. Poor Maggie had been drained dry. I barely got two ounces and just gave up. I released Maggie from the milking stall, then released Stormy from the calf pen. Both calves immediately dove for Maggie's udder, but Romeo had taken everything. Even Stormy didn't get her breakfast.

Okay, new plan: We're going to have to keep Romeo away from Maggie at night. We can't lock him in the calf pen with Stormy because there simply isn't enough room. (Remember, we had to shoehorn the calf pen and milking stall into a very tight corner of the barn.)

A fall project Don wants to accomplish before winter is to build an awning on the backside of the barn to give the animals extra space and shelter over the winter. We've decided to build a holding pen for Romeo into this awning space.

But that won't help in the immediate when it comes to milking Maggie. Filet has been gone over a week now, and this is the first time Romeo beat me to the milk, so to speak, probably because I overslept. I guess in the immediate, I just need to get out to the barn earlier and beat him to the faucet.

It's always something, y'know?