Mama Cow

When Maine-Anjou cattle were originally imported to the United States, they were a true dual-purpose breed.  Since a lot of our cows are true foundation Maines, we have plenty of Milk in our herd.

This leads me to the story of “Mama Cow”  Mama is a 13 year old cow.  Technically she is “219″.  Yes, we say her number like its her name.  She is a grandaughter of Beau’s last show cow “53″.  53 even knew her name.  She would come when you yelled 53.  Keep all these things in mind, because “Mama Cow” needs a name.  Something other than 219.

  When 219 was a heifer, she got mastitis because she had so much milk.  This caused her front left quarter to go bad.  This year when Mama calved, she again had tons of milk.  So much milk had engorged her teats & the little heifer couldn’t latch.  So, we walked Mama & her calf into the barn.  Once wehad her in the chute, we realized that the calf had been sucking on only one teat, because Mama had SOOO much milk.

Mama cow was never halter broke as a calf, but you would never guess. I had Mama Cow in the barn most of the summer & milked her for our family. Yes, you read that right. I MILKED a beef cow for our family to drink the milk. Plus she raised a calf the entire time. Mama Cow is so calm & quiet that you would never guess she wasn’t halter broke. When it was time to milk, I would grab a bucket of hay, and yell “maaaaaammmmaaa”. She’d hear me and head to the gate. I’d walk her through the tub and into the chute. She’d get some alfalfa & I would get milk for the house.

Maine-Anjou cows were dual purpose in France and we are proving that they still can be!! Mama cow’s calf was weaned late this fall and is now going to be a show heifer for one of the girls this summer.

Ps, MamaCow will live forever on the ranch. She will live to be as old as she wants and will be buried in the back pasture when she goes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2012 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.