Name: Snowball D.O.B: Unknown Family: Daughter of Rescue 911, Dam to Calfy.
Snowball is mostly gentle, though she’s had a bit of a hard time getting used to being milked. She still moves around and fusses a bit too much. We had a really hard time getting her bred, so last summer we put her out in the pasture with Mr Bull. That did the trick and the result is Calfy.
Snowball was a little scared of going out to the pasture at first last summer. For the first few days, whenever she saw a person, she would come through the fence all wide-eyed and stand next to them. After a while, she got used to being out there, and now as a milker, she goes out every day with those cows.
We almost lost this little one in the first few days of life. She didn’t want to suckle and was very lethargic. But after a lot of TLC she latched on to the bottle and now is quite the piggy and tries to suck on anything in sight. She’s also one of the prettiest calves we’ve had probably since Stella.
Name: Slinger D.O.B: 7/7/07 Origin: Daughter of Flinger (doesn’t the name Slinger just make sense?), granddaughter to Susan
Slinger shares the same bull as Cookie so she also has a bit of bow leggedness in the back. She’s a bit of a runt but we’ll fatten her up in no time. She needs to be walked and exercised quite a bit to help her legs.
Name: Rescue 911 D.O.B.: Unknown Origin: University of New Hampshire
Rescue joined Red Oak Hill Farm a few years ago and was ‘rescued’ from UNH because she milked too slow for their mass production. She’s a good cow and has the honored spot next to Sudden Impact in front of the fans which is a good spot to have in the hot summer months. She also has a place in our hearts because she survived a barn fire we had 2 years ago and a portion of her neck was burned quite badly. But as you can see she’s all healed and back to romping in the fields.
Last month Rescue stepped on one of her teats and pulled it plum off. She’s OK and this is actually a somewhat regular occurance on dairy farms. We had the vet come out to take a look and she’s healed up fine. You can imagine she milks even slower now but for all that this cow has been thru, she’ll be with us for the rest of her days.
Name: Cookie D.O.B: 7/4/07 Origin: Daughter to Fluffy
This is Fluffy’s first calf and she’s very protective. Cookie is a bit bow legged and wobbly on her feet so it’s going to take a bit more attention and care to make sure she gets enough exercise to correct this small imperfection. She’s also shown herself to be an escape artist and likes to bust out and run around the barn.
This video was taken only a few hours after her birth. Her mother had already cleaned her off and she’s settling in well. Still trying to figure out the whole standing thing though…
Name: Flinger D.O.B - Origin - Daughter of Susan, Dam of Half & Half, and Slinger, granddam to Daphne
This is Flinger, who is sometimes referred to as “The Flinger.” The story behind her name is actually quite simple, each night as she comes in from the field, she runs to her stall, hops up in, grabs a mouthful of feed and flings it up to the ceiling.
She kind of keeps to herself…unless there are apples around. Darcy made the mistake last summer of taking a bag of apples out into the field to give as a treat to some of the cows. The next she knew she was backed into a corner and surrounded by cows. Flinger was one of them, and even came up to Darcy and started nosing into the pocket of her jacket looking for the apple she just knew Darcy was holding out on her.
Thankfully Legs is nothing like her mother, temperament-wise. She’s a bit of a “nervous” cow, but not mean. She’s also one of the very top milkers in the barn. She got her name after her really long legs, which make her one of the tallest cows in the barn. She gave birth to Knees last summer, who shows the potential to be one of the biggest and best cows coming up in the future. (With the exception of Molly of course.)
This is a crotchety old beast. She’s just plain mean. She’s in the first stall of the barn, and if you walk by, keep an eye out - she’ll try to wack you with her head! If she can’t hit you with the top of her head, she’ll try to spear you with her nose. (Thus her name.) Failing that, if you go beside her, watch out for the tail, which she likes to keep wet and messy!
We got her as a bargain buy from a much bigger farm. Despite the fact that she gives a ton of milk, they decided she wasn’t worth the hassle…especially when she had hurt someone.
She’s gotten older, and a bit slower, while still being a great milker. We’ve been putting her outside this spring and she’s been behaving herself…for the most part!
