As some of you may remember; when petulant Petula arrived she gave us our first 'ranching' experience by taking off through the neighbourhood with us and some neighbourhood children, until she found the neighbours herd of rather large Simmentals. Our neighbour, Ron Smith helped to pen her up and load her again and we landed her in a secure stall. OK well that was the plan. Being new, I suggested to hubby that we put a lasso around her neck to get her off the trailer and into the barn. Sounds great doesn't it? That's what 'real cowboys' do. NOT A GOOD IDEA! As soon as she felt the rope tighten on her neck she bolted, pulling that rope, zinging through our hands. I let go when I felt the burn half way across my palm and watched my hubby fall and get dragged through the snow for 50 yards before letting go because he was about to slingshot into a tree. (kinda funny now)
Damn! Now she is loose with a rope around her neck! I high tail it through the snow across the field in the hopes of turning her back before she hits the blind hill on the road but that spurs her into greater speed. On the precipice of the hill she veers into a yard and i figure; great! we can corner her.....ever cornered a snake before? She snakes herself around us and the gathering kids who are all yelling which is of course making her crazier. She ends up back with the Simmentals but this time in a frenzy and with a long rope around her. We try to get the rope but she is too wild by now....and they do have a bull; A BIG CHAROLAIS BULL! So we back off.....Then Ron appears again, "Is this the same day?" he asks dryly. Wait he says, she will come to the feeder. I am terrified she will get strangled by the rope around her neck. Soon enough she goes to the feeder and Ron grabs the end of the rope and somehow ends up yanking her head tight.. Then he fastens a noose around her nose and well, we drag a kicking bawling uncooperative cow back to our place and pen her up......8 hours later we were finally sitting down to supper! Welcome Home Petula
Her first year with us was rocky at best. She immediately took the position of 'boss' cow in our small but growing herd of Dexters. She was small but feisty. She raised a beautiful bull calf though and seemed to keep the coyotes away from the herd. (At this time we were losing lambs right near the house.) So we kept her, hoping she would buddy up to me by the next time she calved. By the next April, I was able to stanchion her, with food, brush her and was pretty sure I would have access to the wonderful milk she could produce. On April 6, 2009 she produced a lovely heifer calf (CW's Pierette) and within 3 days we were trying everything in our power to obtain that precious fluid. Our efforts failed miserably. Petula the witch would have nothing to do with it! She kicked, bawled, fell down and made the effort on our parts a living hell. Each day we would give in and give her calf back to her...Then, because our old cow calved a few days after Petula and SHE allowed me to milk her, I started putting that calf on Pet also. After a few days I let Pet and her 2 calves out and away went Petula with her 2 calves.
In May my 2 other cows had their calves. These 2 cows were to be my 'real' milk cows and I bottle fed their calves for 7 days before I started letting them out with the herd. They came in for thier bottles 2x daily with the milking cows. After about 1 week of them being let out with the herd, the youngest one Mae stopped coming in for milk. That was strange and I began dragging her in anyways and she wasn't all that interested in the milk. She didn't appear sick though and it was then that I noticed she was 'tail gating' on Petula. Black Jack was still coming in once in a while but then I noticed that he too had started nursing off Petula. Petula didn't seem to mind either which surprised me to no end. To make a long story short; that witch, Petula, began to raise all 4 calves and became known as 'Nurse cow extraordinaire!'
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