New Cow in the Barn

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There are times when, as a dairy farmer, you must get a new cow, or a just freshened heifer into the milk barn.  You have them all in the holding pen, you milk the rest, and eventully get to the one who is skiddish, and scared.  In some cases the holding pen is messy, and as in the case of our barn at the time I was milking cows, the pen was sloped, and slippery – even with it being roughed up from when it was poured as fresh concrete.

There are times this endeavor can be dangerous to cow and human.  It must be done with care and caution.  There has been many a cow ruined due spraddling out on the pen and crippling her. 

There was one time when my Dad and I were trying to get one of my freshened holstien heifers into that barn, and she would not go.  She made a run for the pen fence and made a leap.  Before she got to the fence I saw what she was about to do, and I went to head her off.  The problem was as I was going over that cedar log fence, nailed horizontally around the pen, she hit that top one going over or through it, and my 180 pounds, at that time,  was no match for her 1300 pounds, and I went sailing back into the pen.  By the grace of God I landed on my feet, running backwards to maintain my footing.  We never did get that cow back into the pen, little lone, into the barn.

We ended up taking her to the livestock auction for hamburger I imagine.  We had much better time with all the other new ones we have had.  Some slip and fall on the concrete pen.  Some get hurt and some don’t.  Some mend, and some are usually shot and butchered.  There is no point in wasting some good hamburger meat.  If we waited until the cow died it would be a waste.

This story tells you a little bit more of what some of farm life is like.  Not every dairy farmer has this hard of time training cows to the milk barn, but some do.  Some may have better ways of getting them into the barn.  Let me hear from you it you do.

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Filed under Cows, Dairy, Farming