January-May 2012

May 9, 2012: Milestones

Since the last blog our cows have presented us with four new calves. Ocean had a heifer named Ophelia,

who is rather odd but very adorable, Exquisite had a heifer named Enetjie, Ogies had a bull named Oupoot and Nerina had a bull named Nundred.

Why Nundred, I hear you ask?

The birth of this quiet bullcalf marks a milestone for Hydeaway Jerseys. When his mother, Nerina, entered the parlour she became the 100th lactating cow on a farm. We can now proudly announced that we have 100 cows in milk, making for a total of 278 Jerseys (including the occasional Jersey crossbred). If this was a kingdom we would have the heralds on the battlements.

It's not a kingdom, though, so all we have is the smell of trampled grass on an autumn day, the beauty of a well-bred, well-loved Jersey cow, the sounds she makes in her throat, the tottering attempts of a newborn calf to rise to his feet, the broad clean sweep of sky laughing, laughing up above.

Nerina is a suitable cow to do us the honours of being number one hundred; this lovely lady is just entering her second lactation, and is she beautiful!

There are quite a few nice cows coming into the parlour at the moment; old Elavicki blood definitely lends class and production to our cows. Add in some of Moonshot's beauty and you have Hydeaway Koppie Draai, a lovely first-lactation cow. Unfortunately she had an empty udder in this picture, so it doesn't look its best, but she is still pretty.

On a more Holstein sort of note, this sweet face belongs to Uncrooked Blaze (AKA Blaze), our naughtiest and cutest little Holstein calf. (I use the term "our" loosely; she belongs to Brett Gordon of Lovett Holsteins, we're just raising her.) She is forever ending up in the horses' paddock and stealing their hay. Perhaps because her intelligence matches a horse's more closely than a cow's.

Mom and Dad had their sixteenth anniversary recently; the Horse Mutterer cooked up a brilliant plan, Rain cooked up a brilliant cake, I painted 1 Corinthians 13:7-8 on a bit of canvas and I think they enjoyed all three.

Rain is getting very good with cakes; this lovely creation was for the Horse Mutterer's birthday. Rain got the stable's colour exactly the same shade as the actual stable where he teaches riding.

(Yes, for your information, that crumbled cake does represent horse manure. This is the Hydeaway Sense of Humour in action).

Despite the many financial worries that plague us dairy farmers in an era where feed prices go up as fast as the milk prices comes down, we must find time to watch the sunset. There are only so many sunsets in your life and each one of them come straight from the paintbrush of God. Hold onto Him. Come drought or bankrupcy or what may, He's right here, and He's trying to tell you that every evening. Don't miss it.

April 22, 2012: The Flood Slows

The explosion of calvings has finally slowed down a little bit, and heifers are - at last - slightly more in evidence. Winter is coming unusually early with the first frost arriving in mid April, bizarrely followed by a bout of rain last night, but despite the difficult weather the calves' colds are actually improved and the diarrhea has slowed down a lot.

Bontes, our oldest cow (not counting Blinkers who has been honourably discharged and spends her days eating hay and keeping a group of heifers in check), a dear creature with a red coat and picturesque white spots, has given us a bullcalf. He was promptly named Barnabas and is an adorable little ball of fuzz.

The next Joyful Jersey to be born was yet another bullcalf, Joyful Bartimaeus.

Bosliefie finally gave us a beautiful little heifer, Botterkoppie (Afrikaans for Buttercup). She is enormous and very spunky.

Bosliefie gave us quite the scare the evening after Botterkoppie was born - we had a call from one of the workers saying that she refused to get up and in a Jersey cow that always makes us think milk fever. We dashed off with calcium drips and injections and cortisone and a needle about the size of a drill to find Bosliefie lying quite calm and relaxed with her tiny calf huddled beside her. It had been raining and Botterkoppie lay on the leeward side of her mother, sheltered from the wind and wet. The little fuzzball watched us with interest as we pulled out the needles, drew up some calcium into a syringe, and stabbed the needle into the muscle of Bosliefie's neck. She promptly decided that she had had enough and scrambled to her feet with no trace of dizziness, bellowed once to her calf and charged off, perfectly healthy. Strange things, cows. She was probably refusing to budge because she was trying to shelter poor little Botterkoppie from the rain.

Hester presented us with an extremely naughty heifer calf, whom we named Hedwig. She loves to escape and gallop around the calf shed, mooing.

She was soon joined by Rain The Cow's beautiful bullcalf, Ron Weasley.

Hester's sister, Henrietta, had a lovely bullcalf named Hezekiah.

Having watched The King's Speech and adored it, when Leri had a bullcalf the next evening, we simply had to name him Lionel Logue.

Leri herself is now entering her third lactation, and with her high rear udder, big frame and delicate face, she is absolutely beyond gorgeous. She must be one of our most beautiful cows.

Rascal, Rain The Cow's first daughter, also gave us a lovely heifer. We named her Roach since she was living with Beetle. At a day old, Roach was twice the size of her diminutive, two-month-old companion.

Beetle - now without Roach - has been evicted from the house (at almost three months of age) and installed in one of our oldest calf sheds. We made a tradition of writing the name of every bovine resident on the wall. We may need to enlarge the shed to make room for the names. It's a veritable showcase of calves, names, and the progress of my handwriting.

We had big drama a few weeks ago with one of our second-lactation cows, Rinda. When the cows came in to be milked one evening, Rinda was missing. It was nearly dark and the brief search we could make before nightfall was fruitless, so by five the next morning I was saddling my horse Skye in the semi-darkness to go looking for Rinda.

Within half an hour one of the workers, Bote, had discovered poor Rinda stuck belly-deep in thick, clay-like mud.

She was stuck so deep that three of her legs were straight and still couldn't touch firm ground, and she'd been stuck all night. It was definitely a miracle that the jackals hadn't discovered her - she was a sitting duck. The full force of our heavy machinery (i. e., our little old tractor Dawn Treader and our littler, older tractor Dung Beetle) was deployed alongside the best of our troops (Rain, Dad, Bote and another worker). With the help of Dawn Treader's bale fork, Rinda - being a quite small cow at just 350kg - was lifted out of the mud and then dragged onto solid ground. Miraculously, she got to her feet, grabbed a mouthful of grass and set off home at a brisk trot, apparently none the worse for her ordeal apart from a liberal coating of thick black mud.

God works so hard in this little dairy. He must love cows an awful lot.

March 24, 2012: Up to our Ears in Calves

The flood surged on for the next month. We have sooo many little calves right now - and still mostly bullcalves! They have been very healthy up till now, there's a bit of diarrhea going around them, but they're still bright, perky and hungry, so a few shots of antibiotic should cure it.

Mom is being forced to wean them at three months old. (This is technically what's supposed to happen, but more often they end up being weaned at three and a half or four months. More milk = more expensive, but it also equals bigger, stronger, healthier calves). We're still overflowing and still have Beetle in the bathroom, although the bathroom seemed so small, so we let her out to gallivant about in the house. The poor house, which is not a big house, is now home to eight bouncing barking dogs, one galloping calf, two energetic and usually filthy teens, and two harassed parents. Hence it is not the cleanest house in the universe but definitely one of the happiest.

Beetle is not being raised in an extremely conventional manner, to say the least. She likes to nibble spinach in the garden, she sleeps in the bathroom, and she loves to lie in a dog basket chewing her cud. Her favourite is bread crusts - she likes to come and suck your clothes during breakfast, but a few crusts keeps her occupied and then you can have your meal in relative peace.

On a more businesslike note, King Arthur and A. I. bull Access continue to give us whoppers (excepting Beetle, of course). Many are born weighing 30 to 35kg, big for Jerseys, especially for our Jerseys - our previous bull, Moonshot, was sired by Rocket and a lot of his calves are small, neat little animals with short legs, most of them born around 25kg.

Brandybuck gave us our latest calf, a big bull named Barack Obama.

My first A. I. calf was unfortunately also a bull. Borina and Access produced this huge and handsome fellow, Joyful Bartholomew.

Brumby had a bullcalf named Bronco, for whom I don't have a picture. Hilda had a bullcalf named Mad Hatter, Hatter for short, because he wouldn't stop bellowing all the time for reasons unknown - sometimes, very rarely, they shout for their mothers but Hatter was shouting even with his mother.

Our next A. I. calf was Koue Kos (bad, bad name) out of Katryn. Such a lovely boy!

Mermaid FINALLY gave us a heifer. We named her Marigold and she's very beautiful. (Mermaid likes to pull faces).

Another A. I. calf was Merry's son, Martiens, shortly followed by Mariska's bullcalf Mike Parkin. Pocahontas gave us an absolutely beautiful little heifer calf whom we named Posala. I can see us using more Native American names in future. We already have Quirtsquip ("elk chewing bark"), and Pocahontas means "playful" whilst Posala means "farewell to spring flowers", fitting for a little calf born in autumn.

And finally there's Tekkies, Tramizan's son, also Access's son. Come on, A. I. cows, give us some heifers!!

February 19, 2012: Up to our Necks in Calves

They have been coming in a wriggly brown flood and we're having trouble just finding space for all the doe-eyed little monsters. With both calf sheds packed full, several small pens used for older calves being filled with babies, and one (very smug) heifer installed in the bathroom, we're bursting at the seams and have six cows due to calve within the next two weeks. We have forty-two calves on milk. Forty-three, counting this morning's addition to the family. Unfortunately, many have been bullcalves; fortunately, most have been very strong and healthy (thanks to careful care and King Arthur the Bull who seems to be giving us big strong calves).

Hallelujah is enormous and exploding with personality; we all love her perky expression and vivid character. She's doing brilliantly, in fact they all are. And despite the fact that we have had twenty-two calves in just two months, we have with typical Hyde tenacity managed to come up with increasingly creative names for every single one of them.

Made You Look had a big strong bullcalf aptly named Maniac.

Then came a very, very special baby. Blodwynn, one of the heifers in calf to AI, decided to have her calf way out in the veld instead of at home in her nice secure paddock. (Typical). She produced the smallest calf we have ever seen; tiny, knock-kneed, brown-and-white, absolutely adorable and weighing in at just 10.7kg.

We named her Beetle and she promptly took up residence in the bathroom alongside Muffin (the rabbit, who looked about the same size as the calf). Apart from being a third of the size of a standard Jersey calf, Beetle is perfectly healthy even though we accidentally gave her a stomach ache by feeding her too much. Now subsisting on four feeds of just 300ml each day, Beetle spends most of her time on a heap of hay in the bathroom and about six hours each day playing in the veggie patch. On wet days, she has the run of the house, which she quite enjoys.

I sometimes feel sorry for our poor vet. We do so delight in proving him wrong. He has long since stopped voicing his doubts but when Mom asked his advice regarding Beetle it was quite plain that he didn't think the pint-sized bovine would make it through her first week. Mom smugly informed him that Beetle is thriving and the expression on his face was relatively priceless. "What? She's still with us?"

Oxen with broken hips, heifers with joint abscesses, arthritic cows, premature calves, runts born half the size they should be, calves born with underdeveloped lungs... Somehow at this crazy place we often - not always - manage to pull it off and make them thrive. God's hand is evident every step of the way. It's only through Him that the loopy Hydes manage to keep the hopeless cases alive and well.

Firn Junior the cow had a bullcalf named Frankenstein (Frank for short). Read more about him here.

Shumba had a bullcalf named Shakespeare (Speare for short).

Koppie had our next AI calf, a son of Access. It seems that Access calves have some white patches (yay!). This one is called Kierieklapper.

Rinda had a bullcalf called Reentjie, Afrikaans for 'little rain' as he was born in a drizzle.

It was Ingrydd who finally gave us a heifer. This big strong baby is called Ivette.

There are also a lot of calves I didn't get pictures of. Babe (rest in peace) had a bullcalf named Beethoven. Blossom, quite memorably, disappeared one afternoon and my brave horse Skye and I galloped to the rescue; we shot off into the veld to go looking for the errant cow. We found them in a sheltered, forested little hollow amongst the rocky koppies and fought our way through the wattle trees to where Blossom stood in the shade with a spunky, healthy bullcalf, already several hours old. Getting them home was something of a mission; Skye and I tried to herd them along but all that happened was that Blossom got anxious and the calf dawdled in amongst Skye's legs. Despite the fact that my mare was in an exceptionally fiery mood and pranced all the way, when the poor dumb calf bumbled about under her nose she kept her feet very still and lowered her head with perfect gentleness to nuzzle him. I opted for dismounting, looping the reins over my elbow and carrying the calf but he was a sizable creature and I didn't get very far with that idea, so eventually I just sort of shoved him along with Skye plodding patiently alongside and Blossom hovering over everything like a huge, furry mother hen. A worker eventually came to the rescue, but the calf proved to dislike being carried along to a place accessible to the bakkie and we were on the point of slinging the squirming creature over Skye's shoulders when with a Herculean effort the worker managed to get the calf into the bakkie. We named him Boat with a Sombrero. Best not to ask. No, really.

Bambi also, thankfully, had a heifer; she was named Brandyl in the honour of the two teens-from-town who saw her being born, Brandon and Dylan. (That was quite an adventure for them). Line and her grownup daughter Lizanne decided to have their bullcalves on the same day; they were called Lewies and Langsloot and are lookalikes despite having different dads.

Margie succeeded in absolutely mortifying everyone by calving whilst she was still in milk, instead of having a two-month dry period, which is what's supposed to happen. Because she "calved in the bucket", her bullcalf was named Milky. Nijinski had a lovely heifer who is so sweet we named her Nougat, and Primrose had a heifer named Posy. Just after Holly had Halle, Sunset had a heifer named Sparkles, and, finally, this morning Terramycin (the mother of Trouble) had yet another bullcalf, aptly named Terrible.

January 23, 2012: Hallelujah

Our fifth heifer of the year was born yesterday. Holly calved at about a quarter past two yesterday afternoon and the result is a beautiful little heifer calf which Dad christened Hallelujah. Her father is Frosty and she is the first of the Heidi line to reach Studbook Proper status.

Welcome, Hydeaway Heidi's Hallelujah!

January 21, 2012: In Which we Share Some New Arrivals

These are some of our newest Frieslands. As usual they have arrived in excellent condition and great health from Brett. These little girls are about 2-4 months old, newly weaned, and usually weighing between 80 and 115kg. Most excitingly many of the little ladies are offspring from heifers raised on our farm - namely, Chrystal, Dumpie, Erna, Dixie, Cornelia, Clarissa, and At The Back's daughters.

Chrystal's daughter, now christened Unicorn, looks exactly like her mother except that she doesn't know how to pose.

Our third heifer of 2012 has been born. Anemay collapsed in the entrance camp to the parlour with milk fever; a few shots of calcium later and she popped out a feisty little calf. Anemay likes to pull this milk fever trick; she did it with her last daughter, Amazing Grace, and proceeded to get milk fever five times in the next five days. Hopefully she's not shooting to break her own record.

This one is called Astrid.

January 17, 2012: In Which Much Happens

2012 is off to a very hectic start. Christmas was awesome; we stuffed ourselves full of turkey until we couldn't move, and then I stuffed myself full of New Testament until I couldn't think, only believe. And then somehow it was 2012 already and Hydeaway Farm's 12th birthday is fast approaching.

We have already had five calves this year. The first calf of 2012 is a lovely heifer out of Kiske, whom we named Katjiepiering. Katjie is full of personality and absolutely adorable.

On the same day, Nooientjie had another heifer named Nigella. Two heifers in one day! A good start.

Then, in the night, poor Bokmakierie had a bullcalf who died within hours of birth. He was born weak and had a problem with his lungs. Read about it on the Joyful Jerseys News page. Joy soon followed sorrow; Boegoe had our third heifer of the year, she's named Brenda, and then again tragedy; Debbie, a lovely heifer, had our third ever AI calf, a bull. The poor thing crawled through a fence in the night and was killed by Benjamin the donkey, who has issues, not the least of them being that his caregiver is extremely angry with him.

Little Brenda is alive and well, though.

Debbie is looking very promising and she should; her mother Dimanda is a good solid producer with an excellent udder, and her father Moonshot has given us loads of calves who give loads of milk. During her first day this lactation (her first) she gave 14.4 litres which I count as a good start.

As an aside, we are really enjoying our three von Kazandi German shepherds. Ever since Amigo von Kazandi we fell in love with the dogs from this particular breeder and now we have three: Zeco, Yakita and Romy von Kazandi (AKA Apollo, Cyclone and Blizzard). They go everywhere with their respective owners, even three-month-old Blizzy.

Effentjies, the little calf who lived in our bathroom for a month, is doing very well; she is now being weaned (at 5 months). She is much smaller than other calves of her age, but as she was born at 14kg, this is to be expected. Effie is healthy, strong and looking forward to a happy future on the dairy farm with a difference.

We put our smallest calves through the crush on Thursday. They are always amusing as the very smallest - younger than a month - stay in a shed 24/7 until they go outside at around a month of age, and when they go out to get to the crush they are as difficult to herd as cats and shoot off in all directions. Plus they're tamer than some dogs I know and keep running into/sucking/bowling over their herders.

It took them a while to come out, led by Touch Wood.

Then chaos reigned.

Rain, on the right, was particularly busy steering Nikita who shot off in a random direction every few seconds. The calves are doing very well and though our dear Jerseys are born at about 20-25kg, they grow fast. Thank God, we have very little diarrhea amongst them at the moment, the greatest concern being a slight cold that seems to be perpetually doing the rounds among most of the calves younger than three months. It responds well to antibiotic, and I suppose that with 35 calves in a concentrated area it's like creche syndrome in small children.

The bigger weaned calves are doing absolutely fabulously; a handful of calves who were runty when on milk have recovered magnificently, including Trouble, Farris, Button and the infamous Precious. They sure know who the princess of Hydeaway is.

Several of our oldest heifers, approaching 24 months now, have been moved from the Friesland paddocks to our milking herd as they're close to calving. All of these are in calf via AI, a new and very exciting happening for us. Debbie was the first, poor girl, but Koppie, Katryn, Holly and Lizanne are all getting closer. Holly's mother, Heidi, was an unregistered cow and the most phenomenal creature; she gave us eight lactations (since we bought her as a lactating cow) with hardly a day's illness, regularly being the top cow in the parlour. She was very beautiful. We miss her, but she lives on in her heifers, the latest being Holly, who is the spitting image of her mother when she was young.

Holly is in calf to Frosty and we can't wait for her baby!

We have just received our next lot of 20 Frieslands, Group 2, the Us (that will be challenging!) Plenty of the new babies are the calves of heifers we raised here, which is very special. One of the calves born in 2009, Crystal, was the whitest Friesland we ever saw; she just had a few black spots on her sides and black ears. Her daughter is just as white and will probably be named Unicorn.

The new calves involved some extra fencing being put up, as one of the paddocks had basically no grass in it and was shut down to rest. The fencing was done in traditional Hydeaway style, i. e. at about 7:00 PM around a braai. They left me in charge of the meat, which got violently singed. Bunny Chow and Nanette succeeded in breaking off one of Dad's bakkie's rearview mirrors, while Gracie the Friesland managed to hoot the hooter, much to her delight. King Arthur the bull came perilously close to gatecrashing the party but with the aid of a few well-aimed clods of earth he was convinced to buzz off.