One-cow Family Meets the One-family Cow
(Page 11 of 14)
May/June 1972
By Hank Rate
In many areas, cows need some sort of mineral supplement. This mineral is available in a block form that resists weather fairly well and your county agent can tell you what formulation—if any—is best for your region.
RELATED CONTENT
Salt should be available, free choice, to your cow at all times and it should be confined in some way so that she can E roll the block all over the pasture and kill the grass. Your equivalent of Ole Yeller should also have access to all the water she can drink (the quantity will impress you if you try hauling it by hand) and she'll do better by you in the winter if that is warmed to a temperature a little above freezing.
BULLING AND BREEDING
Just about the time Bossy has settled back into her normal routine after calving and you get to feeling comfortable with your daily cow-human relationship . . . you'll encounter a new situation. Approximately 30 to 45 days after presenting her baby to your homestead, the cow will start pacing the pasture, bawling, wringing her tail and sagging in the loins. She ma, refuse to come in at milking time, her production might fall by a third or a half . . . and she may not even let a drop down all for one milking.
Bossy's personality change will be unbelievable. If other cattle are in the pasture, they'll try to ride her and—for a period of from six to ten hours—she'll let them. (Never at any other time will she permit this, even if she does a little riding herself.
Bossy, in short, is bulling. She'll be back to normal in half a day but mark this date on your calendar and mark it well. Twenty-one days (18 to 23) later, she'll be this way again and you'll probably want to get her bred at that time. A good rude of thumb is to breed a cow on her second solid heat period, if it falls at least 50 days after calving. This gives you two chances at getting her bred to calve within a year of her last freshening.
Now pay close attention, because this is where the normal "amateur" milk cow operation gets messed up. Like calving, breeding is not an operation that can be put off. A cow is regular in everything she does and failure to breed yours on an annual schedule can cost your homestead many dollars. Both the calf and the milk you expect your Bossy to produce are important economic factors on a small farm. If the cow freshens only once every 18 months, your loss is appreciable. Drop whatever you're doing when Bossy comes into that second heat and get her bred!
In the early days (and right now, in some communities) a family cow in heat was taken to visit a neighbor's bull. Artificial insemination (it's safer and the inseminator will usually come to you), however, is now available in most areas.
An inseminator's technique varies somewhat from that of a bull and allows you more leeway in servicing your cow. As long as you get her bred within 12 hours of the time that she is definitely in standing heat, the artificial insemination should take just fine. It's easiest, of course, to determine standing heat (when your cow will allow herself to be ridden) if other cattle are present. If Bossy is the only cow you have, the milking she comes up the shortest will probably be your best indicator. Being in heat is really traumatic for most cows and you'll usually dang-well know when it's taking place. The inseminator can help you learn how to detect the tough ones.
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