Most Ridiculous. {{updated!}}
☆ October 5, 2010
Daisy nursing Frisco.
Daisy nursing Frisco and TR.
At the same time.
Do you see the serene contentment in her face?
updated: OK, to address questions!
Frisco was born in December so he is almost ten months old. He most certainly could be weaned at this point and be just fine. TR is 1.5 years old, the same age as Sir Baby. He was weaned at about nine months, and spent the winter and spring with Sir Baby, eating hay like grown-up cattle. But when Sir Baby left to go earn his keep, TR and Frisco became best buds. And in late June, I saw that TR had taken Frisco’s example and was sucking Daisy. And Daisy was just fine with that. She is the sweetest.
They actually make my job easier ~ Daisy’s production has tapered off since Frisco’s birth but I’d estimate she’s still producing about 6 gallons a day. I milk one gallon in the morning and leave the rest for the boys to take care of.
Sir Baby has no interest in drinking from Daisy, though she still treats him like he’s her kiddo, giving him baths with her tongue, which he loves.
In February, I will separate TR and Frisco from Daisy. They will spend their time in a separate pasture with Sir Baby, Sunshine, and Houdini, while Daisy will be the den mother at the corrals for all the first-calf heifers who will be calving in March. I’ll stop milking at that time, too; this will give Daisy the opportunity to “dry off” for two months before her new calf is born. This allows her body to focus solely on her unborn baby and, as the time of birth nears, begin production of the essential colostrum.
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October 5th, 2010 @ 5:25 pm
Once a Mother always a Mother hehe
October 5th, 2010 @ 5:28 pm
Goofballs! But they do know a good thing when they have it.
October 5th, 2010 @ 5:29 pm
Very cute – sweet, sweet, Daisy!
October 5th, 2010 @ 5:33 pm
Wow, what a patient mama.
October 5th, 2010 @ 5:39 pm
Serene contentment? Or, is she quietly planning her retribution? :-P
October 5th, 2010 @ 5:41 pm
OMG!
October 5th, 2010 @ 5:44 pm
If it didn’t feel good to the cow, all calves would starve!
October 5th, 2010 @ 5:45 pm
Frisco’s not gonna be able to do that when those horns come in!
October 5th, 2010 @ 5:48 pm
Lovely : )
October 5th, 2010 @ 6:10 pm
And they will always feel little next to her.
October 5th, 2010 @ 6:13 pm
When I was a kid, we had a cat like that. Mom has a picture of her nursing a whole herd of kittens, like 10 or 11, and only two were hers, and they were all too big to nurse. She had the same expression on her face that Daisy does.
October 5th, 2010 @ 6:14 pm
How about Sir Baby? Has Sir Baby indicated a desire to continue nursing from Daisy AND procreate with her?
October 5th, 2010 @ 6:26 pm
too cute! These babes are as big as she is or bigger!! what a hoot.
October 5th, 2010 @ 6:43 pm
What a cute photo – and a very patient Daisy!
October 5th, 2010 @ 6:45 pm
Oh wow. Ya know. This reminds me of something I realized this weekend after a visit home to my moms. My mother cooks A LOT (all from scratch) from her garden in North Alabama when my sister and I visit. Like, creamed potatoes, friend okra (we call okrins ha), green beans, stewed squash, slices of tomatoes and cucumbers in vinegar/peppers. And then 2 or 3 pies or cakes?! yeah. Then afterwards she sends it all home with us even though we protest (she cooked all day and should keep some for there right?!). So I realized just yesterday…that she gets SO much JOY from sending us to our homes with an abundance of food straight from her kitchen. Anyway…my guess is Daisy loves still being the great “mother hen” and providing for those kids. I mean cows. :)
October 5th, 2010 @ 6:57 pm
Hilarious! But on second viewing what strikes me is the deep blue sky and the stark shadows…beautiful.
October 5th, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
teehee – she does look so happy! (i also had a cat who nursed her son late – till he was abt 2 years old & twice her size! very silly, & sweet.. tho after she finally forcibly weaned him, they had a pretty rocky relationship…) will you have to keep daisy separated from these two after the baby comes, or will she take care of that herself?
October 5th, 2010 @ 7:15 pm
Now that it is funny.
October 5th, 2010 @ 7:21 pm
Mom’s just don’t know when to say no!
October 5th, 2010 @ 8:14 pm
I know nothing about bovine reproduction. . . will her milk stop as her pregnancy progresses? (I know that in humans it does)
October 5th, 2010 @ 8:30 pm
No matter how big they get, they are still her babies.
But I suspect the free lunch will be ending soon.
Hopefully when the new calf comes she will finally be OK with it nursing right off the bat. I know it was foreign to her back on the dairy farm but you’d think she’d be over that by now. Especially seeing that pic.
Silly boys.
October 5th, 2010 @ 9:41 pm
Someone remind me when Frisco was born,, He is huge. I need to see more pics of him, and Daisy and Baby and,,well ALL of them.
Wonderful photograph.
Goof ball boys
October 5th, 2010 @ 10:28 pm
Oh my, Frisco is one big boy! Lovely pic Shreve.
October 6th, 2010 @ 6:17 am
She looks like this:
^_^
October 6th, 2010 @ 6:24 am
My grandpa had a cow way back in the day that would suck herself once in a while.
October 6th, 2010 @ 6:32 am
It just made me think,”Gawd, boys really NEVER DO…grow up” *LOL* I look at your Blogs as soon as I get up and have a cup of coffee in my hands. As always, a wonderful way to start my day!
October 6th, 2010 @ 8:15 am
Such a sweet mama.
October 6th, 2010 @ 8:30 am
Aww, she is so in the mothering, nurturing zone…..
October 6th, 2010 @ 8:45 am
Cute!! What a nice little family.
Out of curiosity though (and sorry don’t have a chance to dig through the archives right now)- how old are the babies? When do they typically stop nursing? I only visited farms as a kid, so this is just stuff I don’t know.
October 6th, 2010 @ 8:50 am
It is a beautiful sight to behold. Daisy is a wonderful and loving Mom.
October 6th, 2010 @ 8:58 am
I have a mama kitty just as sweet. She showed up at my house this past Mothers Day and brought me five tiny kittens. I found homes for all but one so I kept him. I kept the mother also and got her spayed and I just had the boy kitten neutered. The boy is six month old and weighs 8 pounds now but he still nurses on the mama kitty and she lets him. She will clean him and sleeps with him. She is really a sweet mama.
October 6th, 2010 @ 10:13 am
Wow! Do all calves grow so big so fast? Frisco is as big as Daisy and he isn’t even a year old, yet! I find it interesting that Frisco has no white. Will this be the case with all of Daisy’s babies?
I can’t help but notice how healthy and happy all the members of your farmily look. You do such a wonderful job taking care of them. As an aside, what do you do with all of Charlie’s winter fur when he is done shedding it?
October 6th, 2010 @ 10:18 am
I would not want to be her baby calf…would starve after those two BIG BULLIES get full:(
October 6th, 2010 @ 10:44 am
Oops, excuse me… a little snort-laugh popped out.
Daisy came to you as one of the best gifts EVER (for both of you). No wonder she’s white – aren’t all saints and angels white? Bless that lovely, serene expression on her face.
The exquisite blue, white and black in the first picture are so crisp, clear and pleasing to the eye, they remind me just the slightest bit of some of Edward Hopper’s work – “Second Story Sunlight”, “Rooms by the Sea” especially.
Now… and this is just a picky little detail… those beautiful bulls will have an interesting time of it when they grow those pesky horns and are so big they’ll lift Daisy plum off the ground. I’m just sayin’…
October 6th, 2010 @ 10:48 am
Two Mama’s boys for sure and what a sweet Mama she is :o)
October 6th, 2010 @ 11:54 am
She’s just totally made to be a mommy. :)
October 6th, 2010 @ 1:21 pm
Wow…good info Shreve…thanks for the update!
October 6th, 2010 @ 2:02 pm
awesome– thanks for the additional info!
October 6th, 2010 @ 2:45 pm
lately seems is a lot of uproar n big words bein tossed around regarding milk n cake
October 6th, 2010 @ 2:56 pm
Thanks for the update! Love to learn new stuff everyday.
October 6th, 2010 @ 3:26 pm
thanks, shreve! it’s sure great that they all get along so well together – and that you can keep all these friends together, too!
October 6th, 2010 @ 5:24 pm
Indeed that is really sweet and amazing!
Around here they say you can tell a good milk cow by her hips…meaning that if you can see the cow’s hips, if she looks just a little “bony,” she’s a good producer – when I first started dealing with cattle in this area I thought some folks were starving their cows!! Daisy’s a really good (and efficient) milk maker, and she’s got a wonderful temperament as we all can see!
October 6th, 2010 @ 9:39 pm
thanks for the clarification!
October 7th, 2010 @ 7:28 am
Daisy reminds me of a cow named Bounce, she was very sweet and had been thrust upon a friend . The friend was out in his yard and a pickup came along with a calf in the back, the truck oue of those frost heaves we have up here in the spring, you know , your coffee goes flying and your head crunches off the roof of the cab, anyway, the calf went end over coffee cup out the back. She was named bounce for the way she landed, she was alright just a little road rash. My friend patched her up and kept her in the front yard in case the owner came by, which he did a few months later. He (the owner) gave the cow to my friend, Bounce is still around being a wonderful mother.
As for the boys, bovine or human we never get over the love of teats.
October 8th, 2010 @ 1:24 pm
That is too cute. Daisy looks so relaxed too.
October 12th, 2010 @ 5:54 am
Boys! Well if this just doesn’t prove they never grow up I don’t know what does :)