September-December 2011

December 23, 2011: The Christmas Tree

The story of the Hydeaway Christmas Trees is a long and rather sad one. Barely had we moved to the farm than we bought ourselves a Christmas tree (in May); a real tree in a pot that grew. It really did grow. By 2009 we could no longer fit the tree into the house so we lovingly planted it in the garden, where it promptly died, ungrateful thing. Then we cut bluegum trees down, chopped handsome branches off pine trees and this year we decided to do Something Different. Mom said we needed a dead tree. I tactfully did not point out that this is Christmas and celebrates life, not dead trees, and off went Mom, Dad, Rain, Blizzard, Cyclone, a hacksaw and I to find a tree. Enjoy.

Somehow Dad managed to climb over the fence tree and all. Rain unfortunately did not.

The front door presented something of a problem.

The problem was solved with typical Hyde enthusiasm, as was the other problem, regarding the pot. We stuck it in an old milk can. (Yes, not so long ago we actually milked with that milk can).

Supervisor Blizzard approved.

Next came the decorations...

... and every father's Christmas nightmare.

The tree was given a doggy flair,

a star on top,

and so many decorations it drooped.

October 29, 2011: In Which I am a Bad Bad Blogger

Don't worry, Hydeaway Farm was not wiped off the face of the earth. We've had about a mountain of new calves since Magdalene and Beulah. First Lily had a bullcalf named Lughawe (Afrikaans for Airport as Rain was going to fly down to East London to visit our grandparents all by herself. Isn't she brave?) and then the flood started. Carrie, the daughter of Her Majesty the Queen Corne II, had a stunning little heifer named Camilla and shortly afterwards Bakkiekant (long story) had an almost identical heifer named Blinkblaar. Bronwen, Mom's star cow, had her second heifer, a very spunky little girl named Brynja. On the same day Pandy (short for Pandemonium) had another little copper heifer named Phezulu (Zulu for "up there" since she calved out in the veld). Then Belle had her first ever calf, a small heifer named Bryony who thinks a lot of herself and has an attitude and a half. So as you can see we didn't have a shortage of heifers.

In the centre of this female flood, a poor little bullcalf was born out of Pansy. We named him Peter Radford Hyde after an uncle, though he's better known as Petie. Our latest arrival is another young heifer out of Opal, whose name is Oakley. My cellphone, which doubles as Blog Camera, gave up, so I don't have a single picture of any of the gorgeous new calves for you.

We may be Hydeaway Jerseys, but lately there have been two strange new faces amongst our delicate Jersey calves.

Some of you may remember Precious, the little Holstein heifer we put back on milk. Well, some time later, here she is now in the bottom picture. She has grown enormously and is doing really well; best of all, she's tucking into her pellets as well as her milk now, so it won't be long before she's weaned. Preshy has the loveliest temperament; she adores people and will come running up to you if she sees you in her paddock. She doesn't have a bad bone in her fluffy little body. We love her to bits.

The calf in the top picture is a beef bullcalf by the name of Alex Rover. He's still a bit jumpy as he was born and bred in the veld and never saw a human until he was two weeks old, so I couldn't get a good picture of him, but there he is. He looks like a chubby little teddy bear amongst all the sleek Jerseys. Alex's mom was stolen, leaving him behind, so his owners - friends of ours - gave him to us. (We are after all Hydeaway Cow Sanctuary). We were delighted; you'd swear we never have the chance to bottle feed a calf.

And this is beautiful Briar, my SP heifer, of whom I am very fond. She's now about two and a half to three months old and simply lovely. I would very much like to show with Briar, perhaps at Vereeniging show next year, we might be going with some of Brett's heifers - probably the girls we showed in Standerton. I would love to register my own Jersey stud too...

September 27, 2011: In Which we get Heifers!

After weeks passed between Theresa and Crush, we were getting tired of bullcalves. It was a lovely surprise for me when my third-calver, Benita, had a spunky little heifer just before lunchtime this afternoon. Benita's adorable little daughter was on her feet before she could be licked dry. She is one of the friskiest little calves we've ever had.

I was feeding the horses at the time so Mom gave Benita her magic potion. Benita is a very shy little cow; she has always been one of the timid ones. She stood back while Mom put down the bucket and took off the lid, and her newborn daughter tottered up and dunked her nose sharply in the Reviva. Within half an hour of being born, the heifer had attached herself to Benita's udder and was busily sucking away. Benita was somewhat bemused at her playful little calf.

Not long after Benita calved, we found out that Meisiekind had also calved but way out in the paddock that they graze in. Jabulane, Mom, Rain, Cyclone and I set off in the bakkie to go and fetch them. It turned out to be a darling little heifer calf with white spots, always a plus. Out there in the paddock I christened her Mary Magdalene, better known as Magdalene since we already had a Mary.

We set off back to the bakkie when Meisiekind had drunk her potion. Jabulane carried Magdalene and Meisiekind was happy to follow.

Rain sat in the bakkie with Magdalene on her lap and off we went back to the house.

Being in the Biblical mood, we named Benita's calf Beulah (Isaiah 62:4). She is such an adorable, feisty little girl.

As a quick aside, do any of you remember little Bibber, the small calf who was born in the cold and lived in the bathroom? Click here to go to my blog about her birth. Well, this is what she looks like today.

September 25, 2011: In Which Jerseys meet Frieslands

On Thursday a first-calf heifer named Justyn gave us a big fright when she walked into the parlour with an afterbirth hanging out. After a lengthy search, we came to the conclusion that somehow Justyn had aborted; not a big surprise, seeing as her mother Jane milked three successful lactations before giving us her first live calf. Abortions are always a scare because they are the notorious symptom of brucellosis, the disease dreaded all over the world, but our milk is tested monthly for traces of the disease and we have always been clean. Abortions are tricky things anyway; there are so many causes - mouldy hay, vibrososis, chlamydia virus... We have one cow, Anemay, who we can never vaccinate whilst she's pregnant because regardless of stage of pregnancy or vaccination she always aborts without fail and when we avoid vaccinating her, she always carries a live, healthy calf full term. 20% of abortions just happen for no apparent reason.

It's possible that Justyn inherited a tendency to abort from her mother Jane. We never did find out why Jane aborted or why she suddenly stopped aborting and delivered two lovely heifer calves in a row.

The mood was pretty gloomy until we started putting the smallest calves through the crush to weigh them on the scale. We always used a weigh-band, but found it enormously inaccurate and besides some of our little Jerseys were too small to be weighed with it (it didn't weigh anything smaller than 30kg). We're having a little trouble with our smallest calves; they seem to be catching cold a lot, though the weather is consistent and warm enough that it shouldn't cause colds now. There hasn't been a case of full-blown pneumonia yet, and none of them have gone off their milk, though a few went off their pellets for a few days before they stopped coughing. They'll cough a bit and we'll hear a rattle in their breath while they drink their bottles; a shot of Nuflor and Fenylbutazone fixes them within a few days.

We're looking at the quality of the ventilation in our calf sheds as the vet suggested it could be irritation through ammonia. Though our calf sheds are undoubtedly not the nicest sheds in the world, they're never stuffy or smelly and since we got the chickens there are hardly any flies. The calves are bedded on hay which is cleaned out as needed. In the big shed (all of them older than a month) they unfortunately still live in pairs, but in the small shed (most of them a month or younger) we try to keep them apart as much as possible. The big shed calves go out in the daytime, though the small calves stay inside.

The good news is that two little bullcalves who had chronic coughs, Farris and Conundrum, seem to be cured at last.

Anyway, since the small calves stay inside all day, the instant we let them out, chaos reigned supreme. Small brown calves, tails in the air, kicking up their heels, shot off in all directions. Have you ever seen three grown men, one woman, two giggling girls and three hysterical dogs trying to herd cats? That was what it was like; small calves are impossible to herd because they're fast, agile, unafraid of humans and don't stay together.

More good news is that two runts, Precious and Trouble, have improved immensely. Trouble suddenly went downhill after she was weaned; we put her back on milk and she promptly grew thirty kilos in a month. We'll start weaning her again shortly, since now she's eating her hay and pellets much better. Precious is a little Friesland who was very premature and I think she took a hard knock from the stress of the journey here from Brett. We put her back on milk too, and she has picked up a lot.

Next were the biggest of the weaned calves, who go out to graze during the day.

Happy (the dark brown one in the picture) was also a runt who was turned around and is miles and miles better. We marked several oxen heavier than 250kg to be sold; we grow our oxen to this size, instead of selling them at birth, for two reasons; a) we don't want them to go to the veal markets and b) they're like savings, when we want to start a new project we sell a bunch of oxen and use the money.

Five big heifers were also sent over to the yearling Frieslands so that they can be inseminated. Brianna and Freya went to group thirteen, and Amazing Grace, Lady Louisa and Bailey went to group fourteen.

Gracie, Louisa and Bailey clustered together for protection. They didn't know what to think of these big black-and-white calves.

Saturday was Putting Frieslands through the Crush day. Each Saturday we try to put 60 Frieslands through the crush to be weighed, measured, and treated for ticks, and some of them also need deworming, vitamin and mineral injections, eartags or inoculations. We missed a Saturday this month, so we decided to put 100 Frieslands through the crush.

The morning was spent running around and trying to get everything done before half past nine so that we could put the Frieslands through. Dad tinkered with the vacuum pump. I haven't the foggiest idea what was wrong with it, but he fixed it and it made for a very Dad photo.

Soon we were putting the Frieslands through, starting with our very smallest group, 19, the P's. Pauline escaped and we all ran after her for ten minutes while she bucked, jumped and tried her best to evade us. We managed to get her back in, though, eventually.

Halfway through Group 16 (the N's) we looked up to see one of our top cows, Capuccino, busy calving. Mom rushed off and returned later to report yet another bullcalf. Capu has only ever had one heifer, Connie. The others - Crisis, Calamity, Catastrophe and Croccie - were all bulls. This one was named Crush, since we succeeded in putting 100 Frieslands through in just two hours.

Busy as Saturday was, Sunday was pretty peaceful to make up for it and the sunset was suitably calm, serene and beautiful.

September 19, 2011: Overheard at the Hyde House

At suppertime, there was a very rare complaint about vegetables.

Rain: Ew, spinach.

Mom: It's good for you. There are starving children in Africa.

Firn: Yeah, and I'm one of them!

September 18, 2011: In Which Calves are Born and Tagged

We had a very long quiet spell when it comes to calving; after beautiful Briar, my first Studbook Proper heifer (eeek!!), was born, things went really quiet. Then, while we were on our very eventful holiday, Niggie had a beautiful spotty little bullcalf. We named him Not Working. The name was not my idea, but it was a dreadful prophecy because we spent a lot of our holiday working, unfortunately.

Just days after him, Tioctan had a beautiful little heifer whom we named Mother Theresa, or just Theresa.

Bindi had an adorable little heifer named Biep Biep (long embarrassing story), who is one of the cutest calves we've had in a long, long time. Unfortunately she is not very good at posing for the camera yet, so I'll try and get better pictures of her.

A whole bunch of the small calves were given their little white tags with the names on today. Jerseys are all born the same shade of brown, turning different colours as they grow older, so the really small calves get tags with their names on since we are after all Names Not Numbers. My dear Briar got one, as did Barbara's Beaumains, Bianca's Basie, Margot's Mapstieks, Beauty's Bibber, Kulula's Kevin, Postoasties's Phoebe, Being's Budgie, Fiona's Farris, Sugarbird's Spacey, Storm's Sleepless, Not A Boy's Nice, Swallow's Seven Brothers, Oepsie's Obelix, Lollipop's Lindtor, and Brilliant's Braaivleis. We also dewormed all the small calves more than a month old and put tick poison on all the little calves. Some would disagree with dipping such tiny calves but gallsickness in young calves is a very ugly thing.

So our babies are all well cared for now... Next to calve are Benita, Justyn, Lily, Meisiekind and Rita.

September 15, 2011: In Which we Go to the Show

After much begging we eventually persuaded Brett, the owner of the heifers we raise, to let us take some of his lovely "daughters" to Standerton for the Holstein show they hold there. Brett and his mom Sheila seem to think of our establishment as a sort of elite boarding school, rather like Hogwarts, and they are very concerned over the welfare of their four-legged children but we managed to convince them that heifers really don't mind shows all that much. Once he agreed, he suddenly had keenness coming out of his ears much to our delight so we were allowed to go full steam ahead. Initially five heifers were chosen to be the show girls, but I was really new to training Holsteins. Whereas with Jerseys you basically put the halter on and then dangle a bunch of leaves or some suitably tasty morsel in front of their noses until they walk after it, removing the treat after two weeks or so, the Holsteins are a) wilder b) much bigger and c) not as greedy. Eventually we selected the tamest of the bunch, Lovett 10095 better known as Hermoine, and chased her into the crush. We gave her some feed and she settled very quickly; I put a horse's headcollar on her, clipped a lead to it and let her out. I was expecting her to blow up and shoot off to the horizon with myself in tow. Instead she remained perfectly composed and was the perfect lady; she was literally halter trained within an hour.

Suitably impressed I thought that this whole Holstein thing was going to be a lark really; the second heifer, Lovett 10139 Kaleidoscope, turned out to be nearly as nice, only she was a bit more stubborn and needed a bit of shoving at the start. The next one was Hush Up (so named for bellowing very loudly when she entered the crush for the first time), AKA Lovett 10085. I was feeling quite an old hand at this sort of thing, fed her, put the halter on, let her out, and hung on for dear life as she shot off like a hairy black bullet. A full hour later I had nothing to show for the work except for several rope burns, a nearly dislocated shoulder and a decidedly unhappy attitude towards Holsteins. We didn't have much time left until the show, so we decided to abandon Hush Up and Ill Behaved (well named) in favour of properly training Lovett 10163, Moonlight. Moon turned out very stubborn and unflappable with a definite will of her own but she was much easier to control than Hush, much tamer and generally what a sparrowhawk is to an eagle.

Kaleidoscope, registered as Lovett 10139

Hermoine, registered as Lovett 10095

The next step was clipping. Since our foreman up and left I'm the only one who can clip, and clipping is not a job for sissies. You get hair in your eyes and your nose and your ears and your mouth and in every crevice of your clothing; the clippers roar very loudly, leaving you half deaf by the end of it; and the heifers don't like clippers roaring around their ears either, so they dance about and you have to try your best to get them decently trimmed without cutting their skin. Exactly one week before the show it was all done, except for most of Hermoine's back as you can see in the photo, as Neil the Wonder Judge was going to show me how to clip a topline properly. My two riding students came to help with the washing and clipping; my helpers are, from left to right, Moonlight, Dylan, Effentjies, Rain and Brandon.

Show day dawned warm and sunny. The heifers loaded well; one definite advantage of a cow over a horse is that if a cow doesn't want to load you can pretty much pick her up and carry her in, whereas you would have to be very brave and very stupid to try that with a horse. We loaded a bale of hay in the back of Brett's marvellous trailer and off they went, myself and Dad close behind.

I love the atmosphere of a showground on the last day of arrivals. The air simply tingles with suspense. You can smell the anticipation on the air; everywhere is the feeling of months of work coming to its great climax. We brought December along with us, as he was the most willing and least full of nonsense at the time. We have a soft spot for December; apart from the name, he turned up on our farm as a chubby boy of eighteen and very quickly morphed into a hard-working man.

The Standerton showgrounds turned out to be nice; not the stunning facilities like Bloemfontein's (then again, nowhere in SA has facilities like Bloem's), but the stalls were nice, and the wash bay, though tiny, was well-equipped. The show ring was also pretty good, complete with a big white tent. The Holsteins were sharing with a bunch of enormous beef cattle. Beef bulls are almost too cute for their size; big fluffy teddy bears with curly hair, soft eyes and their brass noserings glinting in the sun.

We bedded the heifers on shavings and put up the Lovett banner. They settled very quickly, as their journey had been short and restful. Neil told me to feed them plenty of hay to make them look more open-ribbed. Each heifer watched agog as I piled stacks of hay bigger than themselves in front of them. Hermoine nearly hung herself and fell onto her back by getting a foreleg hooked around her lead rein, but we got her loose and she was fine if a little shaken. Needless to say, she didn't pull that stunt again.

Since Standerton was so close to home, we left December there for the night and went home. Neil warned us that the wash bay got very hectic from about half past six in the morning, so come five o' clock we were there in the pitch darkness. Pandemonium had broken loose in the night; December had decided to wash the heifers. Well, we can't blame him, since everyone else was washing their heifers, but December hasn't the foggiest idea of how to wash a heifer so poor little Moon was left tied up and soaking wet and Hermoine had a very clean backside and a very dirty everything else. I quickly finished off Hermoine's wash, managing to soak myself in the process, and Mom and Rain soon had Moon dry again. She shivered a little and wasn't too interested in her feed for a while, but we draped her in a blanket and rubbed her until she stopped shaking and tucked right in. We've been monitoring her closely for a cold ever since and she is thankfully perfectly all right. Hermy was fine too and Dad gave December a crash course in calf bathing with Kaleidoscope. Things had just begun to calm down when Brett and Sheila arrived and asked if we'd noticed that our whole hay bale had disappeared. Oh well, we didn't exactly put our name on it and there was so much hay lying around that anyone could have mistaken it for thier own or the hay supplied by the showgrounds. Luckily there was hay supplied by the showgrounds; more than enough of it and good quality stuff, according to the heifers, who tucked right in.

December began to polish the heifers obsessively; now with a brush, now with a cloth. He kept this up all day, by the way, so we had very clean heifers. Neil taught me how to clip a topline into a sharp V shape. Though the practice is banned in the Jersey showrings, with Holsteins it is still allowed. The hair on the topline is clipped strategically, leaving some parts long and some parts short, to make the entire topline look perfectly straight. Any judge worth his salt will spot a fault anyway, and unlike many banned showing practices it does absolutely no harm to the cow, but it does make a very nice impression and give the neurotic showman something to do. Neil did Hermoine while I watched; then he did a big, beautiful cow; then he handed me the clippers and said, "Right, it's all yours. This is the best heifer so no pressure." Apparently I didn't mess her up too badly since she placed well in her class.

Then, after polishing their feet and combing out their tails, we were dashing off to our first class with Moon and Kaleidoscope.

I was worried about Moon since she tends to be stubborn, but as long as we weren't last in the ring, we'd be fine. Well, we were last in the ring and we were fine anyway, thank heaven. She actually behaved herself really really well. Mom put a big flowery ribbon in the end of my hair and the end of Moon's tail; we looked pretty eccentric, but at least we stood out.

Moon (Lovett 10163)

Kaleidoscope

Pretty little Moon was unplaced in her class, but Kaleidoscope came third out of eight! Considering that many of the big farmers were there (West End, Imago, Kevin Lang, etc.) it was a massive acheivement. It was our first ever breed show and first ever Holstein show, as well as the first show for Brett. We are so proud!

I went straight into the ring again with Hermoine. Hermy decided to make a grand entrance by galloping full tilt into the ring. I tried to remain calm and composed and brought her skidding to a halt. Apart from the grand entrance and a massive spook at the judge she behaved herself really well; her head was high, her back was straight and her bearing as stately as that of a queen. I made a big mistake with Hermy by keeping her in her stall for most of the day and taking water to her instead of taking her out to water, so she had way too much energy in the ring. Not a mistake I'll make again; the friskiness didn't make the best impression on the judge.

Still, Hermoine strode to a very well-earned fifth place out of a big class (at least twelve heifers). The judge was very impressed and the announcer said that all four heifers placing above Hermy (and quite a few placing below her) had been bred by farmers who had also bred National Champions, so Brett has done really really well with his heifers. Congrats Brett! We are so happy for you!

The attitude towards newbies at the Standerton show was absolutely amazing. One bad thing about the Jersey breed, their owners can be a little snobby. Not all of them, of course, but some of them. The atmosphere at Standerton was so welcoming and encouraging and we would like to thank the organisers very much for making the show such a pleasant experience, which we would be delighted to repeat.

Mom had to tell me all about the announcer's words later, though, since Hermy decided to make a grand exit as well and very nearly squished the ring steward. Ah well, it was sweet vengeance; I don't even know who that ring steward was, in fact I didn't even notice him until Hermy decided to squish him, but for some reason I have a deep phobia of ring stewards. Nearly squishing one was great therapy. I apologise humbly to any ring stewards. It's not their fault that I have a glitch in my brain that makes me scared of them, or perhaps it's the fault of that one steward who bit a cow's tail when it was unwise enough to lie down. Have you ever bitten a cow's tail? Yeah, it was quite scary.

We had a long break then until the youth show. Brett gave Hermoine some TLC to help her calm her show nerves.

We were still looking a bit nervous as we waited to go in, though.

Unfortunately the youth show was rather short and though the atmosphere was, as always, encouraging and fun, the poor judge was just about passing out where he stood (he'd been judging for several hours without a break) and the show lasted for about ten minutes. Hermoine spent most of them trying to impress the judge with her bucking abilities. The good part about youth show is that even if your heifer utterly misbehaves herself - which Hermy was far from doing - if you handle it right you can still really impress the judge. Anyway, I got Hermy under control quickly and she stood beautifully in the line-up like the well-bred young lady she is. There are few things more lovely than a well-bred, well-prepared and (kind of) well-trained show heifer, sleekly clipped, topline like a ruler, tail bushing, head high. A creature made of porcelain and patience.

The youth show was really fun. This adorable little girl needed a little help from her daddy, and the cool thing about youth show is that he was allowed to give it. The judge helped the other adorable little girl to hold her equally adorable little calf.

Rain and Kaleidoscope got a very well-earned first place. One of the adorables came second, which she deserved, though the line-up looked a litte odd.

Hermoine and I galloped to third; I'm not even sure if I earned it, I was too busy holding on to Hermoine. She enjoyed it a lot, though.

It was a highly successful show. All the heifers are home safe now, still sporting their sleek coats; Hermy's topline still looks like a ruler. She keeps on escaping from her camp and this afternoon she was close to the horses' paddock at their supper time, so she got a handful of horse feed as a treat. She is such a darling.

We would like to thank the Standerton Show organisers for their immensely nice attitude; Neil for his time, patience and great help; Brett and Sheila for the lovely privilege of showing their beautiful animals; and our Lord God for blessing us so abundantly.