My Jersey cow, Dawn, is a real trip! She's an older cow ... very friendly, patient, and, of course, stubborn! Every day when I get home from work, I let her out into the yard, to keep her away from her calf, so that she has some milk for us by milking time. Now, our yard isn't fenced, but Dawn never goes anywhere (unless she's in heat ... then she heads up the road a quarter-mile to make googly eyes over the fence at the neighbor's bull! ). Most of the time, she just grazes in the yard, or in the neighbor's yard (they are cool with that). -- Until last week, when she developed a new "hobby." She went into my husband's workshop (our attached garage) and knocked over sa bunch of stuff. We knew it was her, since she left a great, big "calling card" on the floor. A couple days later, she did the same thing at our neighbor's garage! (Luckily, they thought it was funny! Whew!) I agreed to make sure their overhead garage door was shut before letting her out again in the future ... fine, no problem ... except a few days later, she went over there again, pushed open the service door (guess it wasn't latched securely), went inside and pooped on the floor again! In the meantime, she's been going into my husband's workshop every day. Today, he went out to feed the turkey poults and called me to look ... She had proceeded all the way through the garage (amazing since it is crowded with tools etc.), and pushed open the door at the back that opens into the house! (The latch doesn't work right; you don't have to turn the knob, it will open if you just push it.) I'm pretty sure that if there wasn't a step there, she would have mosied right into the house! :no: I'm afraid I'm going to have to find a way to put this girl on a picket before she really gets into mischief. It's a shame, though, because she really seems to enjoy her little excursions ... !
Cattle are very inquisitive by nature - and perhaps easily bored. She discovered new territory to explore. I've had mine go into the garage and nose stuff around also. I once had two heifers inside an area with chain link fencing and the type gate you lift up the horseshoe gate latch. A couple of mornings I found the heifers out of the fence. I figure I had forgotten to shut the gate. Then one morning I knew I had. I happend to get up one night with a full moon and watched her walk over to the gate, lift the latch with her nose and push through. Cattle are a lot smarter than people give them credit for. Ken Scharabok
Sounds like the ideal family milk cow. Have yo though about how much nicer it will be to do the milking in the kitchen this winter? Those old barns can tend to be a might chilly in the winter. Not even having to go get her is almost to good to be true. Maybe you could have her stand in an old bath tub until you have her house broke?
:haha: :haha: :haha: I've been thinking of getting her one of those bags they put on buggy horses, to collect their droppings ... Well, it's not the first time the livestock has ventured indoors. When I was bottling my little doeling Domino, she lived in a pen on the back of the house. I'd let her in the house, and she'd scramble through the kitchen and living room, out onto the deck, where I'd give her her bottle. Then I'd chase her back through the house to her pen ...
