Hey friend!
This past week and half have been crazy. My dream milk cow, Groot, calved and had twins! Did I ever tell you why we named her Groot? We were thinking up names that start with G (it's a cattle thing) and It's from Guardians of the Galaxy. Of all the names we thought of, my husband and I loved Groot the best, so we went with it.
My brain even went a little further because it's like in the movie, Groot always says, I am Groot. But then he sacrifices himself at the end of the movie and says, We are Groot. And Groot gives us her milk which helps us live so I think it's kinda like, We are Groot.
I know I think of the weirdest things. My brain is hilarious and awesome.
So Groot has two twin boys and I started milking her. And then the nightmare began.
Groot kicked and kicked and kicked. I did my best to discipline her, firmly saying "No!", giving her a smack if she kicked really hard and of course always bribing her with grain to get into the milking chute. It was awful. My arm got scraped once but I was never injured, thank goodness.
She had cracked and bleeding teats because of the harsh dry winter air, so I felt terrible pulling and squeezing on her cuts which would sometimes even bleed a tiny bit. But she would get terribly sick if the milk stayed inside her udder, so there wasn't any choice. And if that wasn't bad enough, my hands couldn't seem to get much milk out and there was no possible way I could hand milk out all of her colostrum (that's the first milk which is stuff that you DO NOT drink - well you can but it tastes gross and it's for the new baby's immune system to get kick-started.)
What am I going to do with my beautiful new dream cow who, number one - won't let me milk her and number two - even if she stood perfect my weak little fingers can't even get the milk out!!!! My dream cow was quickly turning into my worst nightmare. I started to wonder why it felt like God led me to this cow, just to have such trouble.
Not only did I struggle with Groot, but my husband, bless his heart, was adamant at trying to tell me what to do with my cow. He just wanted to help so he told me to get rid of the calves so that she would let me milk her. It's true that like 99 per cent of cows won't "let down" their milk if they are waiting for their calf to nurse. It happened to me with my other two jerseys, Ellie (RIP) and Buttercup both would never give me their milk if they had their calf around.
So Brenton wants me to hand milk a cow that my hands can't seem to milk and either bottle feed her twin boys or sell them. Nope and nope. I was determined that those little boys were not the problem but in fact they were my solution.
My ultimate goal and dream was to have Groot feed her babies all day, then I would separate them just for overnight (when they mostly sleep anyway) so that in the mornings I could come, get some milk and then let the babies back in with her for their breakfast and the rest of the day. This looked impossible.
Groot at first didn't seem to even want her babies. But after about a day she came around and started licking them and mooing at them, acting like a good mother. Except she wouldn't let them nurse. She wanted them near but she would kick them away if they tried to get some milk. So we were making some progress at least that she was accepting both of her calves as her babies, but how were they supposed to eat?
So I got her into the milking chute, gave her some grain and Brenton was my wonderful strong man who helped me by tying up one of her back legs. She was still standing normally but the rope simply kept her from being able to kick and then we brought the babies over and once they realized they could get a drink without being pummeled by Mommy dearest, they went to town!
So they started helping me out with problem #1 - getting the colostrum milk out of Groot. Their strong little mouths did the job 100 times faster than I could. She had a lot of milk and I made sure the boys moved around to get all four of the teats while I helped as much as I could. Everyday we got better and better at emptying Groot's milk.
Having the calves frothy little mouths working away on Groot's teats also started helping her wounds. Their mouths would clean out the dirt from the cracks and moisturize her skin too. And after they drank I smeared on a beeswax salve that a friend of mine made just to help speed up the healing as much as possible.
After a couple days with the rope on her leg Groot seemed to get the idea and she stopped kicking entirely. I was able to put her in the chute and bring the babies and she would stand perfect for them to drink and also for me to milk afterwards. Things were looking up. But I still wanted one more thing, I wanted Groot to let them drink all day and she was still kicking them away if they tried to nurse in the pen.
So I drove from my house a short drive, three times a day, morning, noon and night to put Groot in the chute, let the babies drink and, twice a day, I would also milk her so she was getting empty often enough to prevent illnesses like mastitis.
A strange and wonderful thing also happened at this time. I noticed Groot would try to get her nose in the milk pail if I walked by her head with it and I'd heard about some cows would drink their own milk if allowed. This is a wonderful thing for two reasons: 1) animals know when they are lacking certain nutrients and if she will drink her milk it probably means she needs to recycle some of the calcium or other nutrients. 2) with my jerseys I'd always struggle with the overflow of milk production, often dumping it out when it just became too much to handle. I hated dumping out that hard work but Buttercup never wanted it.
So I offer Groot some of her milk and BOOM, a couple big slurps it was gone! I did a happy dance, no kidding, I really did. No more need for a second fridge just to house the oversupply of milk, no more dumping all my hard work down the drain! Groot was happy to recycle her milk and I was even more happy for her to do it.
I started telling my family that every time I went to milk Groot it was getting better and better.
But I still had to drive over there three times a day. This was not going to work for very long. I really needed her to let her babies nurse and get milked. Brenton kept telling me she would never let down her milk for me without the babies drinking first.
My parents had cows when I was really little and my Dad told me that out of all the cows they ever had, there was one cow, just one, that would let down her milk no matter what, baby or no baby, and then go and nurse her calf the rest of the day.
"You're dreaming!" Brenton would tell me. "That's a one in a million cow that will give you her milk and keep the calf too."
Well I knew that God had given me my dream cow and I just knew that if I kept trying my promise would come. I could just feel I was getting closer and closer, every day.
A couple days later, I was driving my kids home from a baseball game and my older son, Henry, was asking why we couldn't go the games that were away in other towns. I explained to him that I had to go to the barn three times a day to make sure the babies got their milk. He was naturally very upset and I told him that he should pray that Groot would let her calves drink by herself, without my help.
So he did.
Sure enough, the next morning, it happened. I put Groot in the chute, I brought up the calves and I waited for them get drinking like usual but they didn't. They stood there for a bit, then laid down and went back to sleep.
I felt Groot's udder, soft and empty on one side! She had done it! She let the babies drink on their own, no help.
Then came the ultimate test. I didn't have a hungry calf to drink and get Groot to have her let down of milk. I was on my own.
I sat down.
I started milking.
The milk started flowing and gushing and she had let down for me. Just me.
I got my one in a million cow.
She let's down her milk for me, standing perfectly, no kicking at all, and she will nurse the babies the rest of the day.
I've already posted the story of how I felt moved by God to go and buy Groot, (click here to read it) and that she was my dream cow. When we got to the dairy where she was, she was literally the only cow they had for what I wanted. They had many for sale, but only Groot had long teats, has A2/A2 milk, and was due to calve in the spring.
She was meant to be my cow but I feel that God used this experience to teach me that sometimes my dreams are going to require faith, perseverance and determination to see my dream come true. Sometimes your dreams are going to require you to fight for them and keep going even when it seems impossible.
Had I listened to my husband, given up and gone back to doing what I always did with my milk cows, taking away the calves, I would never have seen my dream come true.
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