Bringing in the cows: Jerseys at the river

We went to the River Taw (​that runs down below us) yesterday for the first time with Ernest and Lily. The video is of us meeting some Jersey  yearlings grazing alongside the path to the river. The farm that own them graze yearlings each year in these fields after Silaging.

Jerseys are pretty little cows and when you milk Holstein Frisians they do seem very small. 

Jerseys at the river

Having milked Jerseys, I know from personal experience that they are a bit more of a fidgety cow to milk than a Frisian. I comment on the white on some of the Jerseys and some Jerseys do have white about them. The Guernsey comment is the fact that the neighbouring farm to the Jerseys run a small Guernsey ​herd, that are brown and white. The Jersey herd these yearlings are part of is a pretty serious herd, milking around 180 to 200 Jerseys. 
​When meeting them Ernest did bark at them and having worked with dogs around stock for many years I employed the method I have found the most effective with a young dog when they bark at livestock. This method is to have them on the lead and just poke 'em with your toe up their bottom each time they bark. You don't hit them hard, just slip the toe between their back legs and flip the toe enough to up end them slightly. The puppy soon gets the message and decides that not barking is the required behaviour. You cannot mess about with livestock and dogs. Lines have to be firm.

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Summer Mastitis

Earlier when I posted I forgot to mention that one of the Jersey heifers I was concerned about in the video. It looked like they might have Summer Mastitis If you watch the video above. At the end one of the biggest heifers walks along the fence. you can see the back quarters of her udder and her back right quarter looks bigger with swelling up through the quarter. I took a note of the first three digits of her ear-tag number. On returning home and telling my husband, David, he rang the farmer who owns the cattle and we know well. So David was on the phone for sometime chatting. Summer mastitis is a pain. Caught early enough you save the cow being very ill, but more often than not you lose the quarter still.