This note though was the one that I don't enjoy reading. I looked at the note, "Jane. Please put 669, 513 and 9 up in the pens. Thanks." This note I knew from the numbers was a cull cow note (cows that will be going of to be slaughtered). All old girls in reasonably good health, but barren, and come the cows coming in for the Winter most Dairy farms look to cull out what we call "barren cows."
You try not to, but you do get cows that you get a bit more attached to and on that list was one very old girl I was hoping this day would never come for, number 9. She was a rarity in herself, a Holstein Frisian that was 17 years old. She attained her Gold Ribbon (she produced over 100,000 kg milk in her lifetime) from the Holstein UK association. She was on a twice a day milking system, milking off grass through the summer months. She never had mastitis during her lifetime and had no trouble with her feet. She did not attain really high yields, but kept to a steady 8,000 to 9,000 liters of milk each lactation, producing very good milk quality. The herd runs on an annual butterfat production of around 4.6% butterfat (which is pretty amazing for Holstein Frisians), most Holstein Frisian herds that are producing crazy amounts of milk from cows are lucky if the butterfat is just over 3% which farmers who have stayed with producing a quality product rather than a high volume product would classify as white water from cows. So yesterday morning as usual number 9 trundled in on the second row and as she left the parlour I walked out in front of her to swing back a gate to divert her up in to the pens. Never a cow that was overly comfortable with being petted, but an easy cow to move about the place, she passed by me in to the pen and I shut the gate behind her. I stopped and cast an eye over the old girl knowing it would be the last time I would set eyes on her. Emotion waved over me, but reason sometimes has to take precedence She looked unperturbed by being in the pen and I went back to attend to the rest of the cows that needed milking. The farmer I work for books his cull cows in at 2 to 3 at a time and takes them to the abattoir himself. They are pre-booked in and are slaughtered not long after arriving at the premises. Number 9 had, had a good life. Her only ailment was a bit of arthritis in her lower back. Her life was longer than a wild bovine could ever hope for. In the wild death does not come with any speed. The quickest death you can hope for when so big in the wild is a predator clamping around your windpipe and suffocating you to death and the others already starting to feast on you. For number 9 it was either culling her whilst she was in reasonable health, giving her a quick death or waiting for catastrophe to hit. Reason is often the kindest emotion. She was the end of an era, as she was the last cow left in the herd from the herd being restarted after the whole herd was culled due to foot and mouth in 2001. She leaves behind a legacy though of her offspring and this Autumn saw the calving in of the set of twin Frisian heifers she gave birth to two years ago. Long live number 9.
1 Comment
Jan jenkins
23/11/2016 08:35:11 pm
Felt so emotional reading your story I have always loved cows and understand they are there for a reason but can imagine how you felt Jane reading the note left by the farmer.
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“The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you,but he will make a fool of himself, too.”
― Samuel Butler Me (Jane) with Puddin' and Teagol, waiting patiently to flush a patch of kale, December 2019
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