# Brought home a new Heifer!



## boothcreek (May 1, 2012)

Terrible little me brought home a new Dexter Heifer from the Odd and Unusual Sale on Saturday.......







We have been thinking of getting an unrelated heifer or two for 2 yrs now, I seen her and just had to get her! They didn't know her age, but I am guessing her around 6 months, 8 at the max.
From what I've been told she came from a Petting zoo that went belly-up.
And it Shows, she is very tame, and someone made sure to teach the ground rules like no rubbing heads on people, using the horns and respecting personal space etc

Halter broken and brushable from head to toe! I can mess with her udder too and I just get a leg up so I can reach better I think I got my next milking dexter!!!!! YAY

One thing I am stumped on tho, I cannot think of a suitable name.........


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## redtailgal (May 1, 2012)

lol, her halter is too big!  and hot pink!  love it! just watch that she doesnt get a foot hung in her halter.

What sort of names do you have for your other cattle?

We've named a few of ours..........Scarlet, Rose, Red, lol, see the theme?


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## Cricket (May 1, 2012)

Oh GOOD buy!  I've yet to see a Dexter in person, but have a really small Jersey heifer and see that you can buy Dexter semen.  I imagine she'll name herself sooner or later!


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## Stubbornhillfarm (May 1, 2012)

Very nice!   Yes, I think she has much growing to do before the halter is a perfect fit, but the hot pink does look lovely on her!  Pretty color.  

Our heifer was named "Fancy" when we got her.  The name didn't really fit her personality in my opinion so she is now "Reba" and it fits her quite well.  Sometimes we call her "Hoover" (like the vaccum cleaner) because she goes around vaccuming up all the grain that the others leave on the ground.  Funny thing is when I saw your heifer, the first name that came to mind was "Fancy"!  

Thanks for sharing pictures!


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## boothcreek (May 1, 2012)

We dont have any cow halters so a horse one had to do and they never fit right(and the hot pink one fit the best go figure  ), and i didnt think she was halter broken. I thought I get her trained before putting her with the herd and she let me put a halter on her like its old news..... ok lead rope on and see if she walks with me.... and she did!  Now thats a cool surprise.

She was just wearing it while I worked with her.

Just came in from watching over her while meeting our other girls and the bull. She was much more preoccupied with the amount of space she had to run. A 60 acre pasture beats a small petting zoo paddock I guess. She kept stopping every 50 yards or so looking for where the fences are.  Then running back to the rest of the cows bucking and kicking like crazy bellowing as she went. 

I don't think she is use to socializing with cows much tho, her approach to the others is very brash and un-cow-like, altho our 3 week old calf liked the approach and wanted to constantly play with her. But Abigail, his mom, didnt like that one bit and kept chasing her away from her calf(who in turn kept running after the fleeing newcomer... Abi was sick of it after 20 mins).

Our cows are Daphido, Abigail, Henry and Lil Red(well, big red I guess, not so lil anymore). We dont really have a theme, all of them we kinda met and watched a few days and went, s/he is a ........

Right now I call her "Little Mooo", gotta change that quick before it sticks haha.

She really is a cute little bugger, I hope I can get her all trained up for handmilking, she seems to have good handling basics in any case. I do hope she grows a bit more, cause she is right at the 3 ft mark. She should finish at about 41 maybe 42 inches I think, looking at her proportions and leg size.


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## Stubbornhillfarm (May 1, 2012)

It sounds like you have some great entertainment going on around there!  Not that I have a lot of time to just "sit and watch" but when I get a chance to, there is nothing better!


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## redtailgal (May 1, 2012)

It seems everyone has a cow named red.  There are several in my community, along with the name "Peaches".  Peaches?  I dunno!

Lol, I'd bet it was a good laugh watching her kick up her heels.


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## boothcreek (May 1, 2012)

It was great fun to watch her be a hyper happy cow. She found the wallow from our cows and was kneeling in it rubbing her head an chest in it, too cute. She is use to horses, but only minis so our regular sized ones don't worry her but she isn't sure how to approach them to say hi. She tried several times and by her face she seems to think yay a mini horse at a distance and her eyes get bigger and head gets higher the closer she gets and realized : wait a minute, them are big minis, and she stops short just staring at them.

Just came from town buying feed and I asked the clerk at the feedstore if they had halters for cattle, and lucky me they had 1 left, its one of those ajustable rope ones so its perfect. and it is bright RED 

Red is such an unimagenative name, but thats all I could think of when our one cow was born. We have Blacks and Duns and one of our blacks gave birth to one of the most fire red calves I have ever seen. So as a baby she was always "little Red". Despite her firey colour she is one of the mellowest cows tho and without being trained to halter or stand or anything one of my best milkers(wave the milk bowl at her and she is bolted to the ground).


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## WildRoseBeef (May 1, 2012)

Congrats on the good buy!   Just wondering, but what are you going to do about those horns?


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## boothcreek (May 1, 2012)

The horns stay of course.


I did a bit of a photo montague of our herd, it was so nice and sunny out earlier.

My view from the PC 





Close up of the herd. From left to right: Abigail, Stew(last years steer for the freezer), this years lil tyke "Shorty", Henry following the new heifer, Red in the back and Daphido on the far right :





Henry with his new love, which I think I will be naming Ray-Ray:





Just cause he is cute, a pic of Shorty(yea yea I know his eartag is in the wrong way, held the tagger upside down and didnt notice):





And his momma Abi(lead cow and ruffler of all feathers):


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## redtailgal (May 1, 2012)

Love the face on Shorty, lol.  He's got an all business face.

Your herd is lovely!


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## Stubbornhillfarm (May 2, 2012)

I agree with redtailgal,  the apple didn't fall far from the tree there.  Shorty does look all business and I wouldn't want to be the one to ruffle Abi's feathers.  She looks like she'd knock you into the middle of next week!  I love it.  No messin with her.  And Red...oh my goodness, what a beautiful color!  What a great looking heard and spectacular landscape you have there.  Congrats!


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## boothcreek (May 2, 2012)

Abi is a tough cookie, surivived being toxic from mastitis and an allergy to penecillin(but lost a 1/4 of her udder, as you can see on the pic) 2 yrs ago and still kicking and giving us big beautiful calves. But we got an agreement, I can handle her calves but no one else. Everyone else better run for the fence(which I think is holarious).
She melts into a drooling suck-up tho when you got a brush and work her over with it 

Shorty is a nosy brat that keeps his mom busy, his motto is to go and check everything out up close against his moms approval, I never have seen abi have a calf that makes HER run 
That is what send Ray-Ray Flying a few times, cause Shorty wanted to play and just ran up to her. 

This Am everything is peacful in the group and Ray-Ray looks like she belongs, grazing right in the middle. We were honestly worried since we haven't introduced a new female in 8 yrs and the old girls can be rather harsh sometimes...


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## WildRoseBeef (May 3, 2012)

boothcreek said:
			
		

> The horns stay of course.


I don't think you understood what I was asking.  I didn't ask specifically whether you were going to completely lop the horns off, I was asking (or rather implying) whether you were going to tip them some or leave them.  Guess I wasn't specific enough for you, so sorry I asked what sounded like a stupid question to you, I'll try to be a bit more specific next time. :/



Nice herd, btw.


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## greybeard (May 3, 2012)

redtailgal said:
			
		

> It seems everyone has a cow named red.  There are several in my community, along with the name "Peaches".  Peaches?  I dunno!
> 
> Lol, I'd bet it was a good laugh watching her kick up her heels.


My little bull calf is Booger Red. (My highschool assistant principal's nickname picked up from his own highschool football days)


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## boothcreek (May 3, 2012)

WildRoseBeef said:
			
		

> boothcreek said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They stay the way they are.


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## WildRoseBeef (May 3, 2012)

deleted...result of getting a little too huffy lol.....


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## redtailgal (May 4, 2012)

I'm curious about the allergy to penicillin.

I lost a goat this time last year to a reaction.  What sort of reaction did she have and what did you do, if you dont mind my asking?


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## boothcreek (May 5, 2012)

Her hair started to fall out around the injection site, she got extremely sensitive to touch, and she started getting hives everywhere. The hives turned into huge pussing sores after a few days and the hair loss started to go over her whole body with us not figuring out what the heck is wrong.

Then at day 4 the pussing sores got huge and the skin actually lifted off the muscle tissue underneath, it was just horrible. In the end we had a few of those sores break along her arm pit on one side and drain and created a complete cavern where the tissues had seperated. If you pet her along her right side now you feel a lot of lumps where the tissue scarred trying to re-adhere itself to the muscles etc and one huge scar where one broke open to a hole the size of my hand(womens med).

The vet said its an allergy to the penicillin and we stopped it immediately and withing 3-4 days her hair stopped falling out, and the sores deminished, we could start touching her without her flinching in pain and lashing out, and she was overall much better just kept on painkillers/fever reducers. Of course the penillin didn't do much for the mastitis she suffered from and she lost her one teat but without the penicillin she was at least up and moving, eating, drinking etc and not laying on her side looking like she'd die any minute(3 times I walked away to get the gun cause I couldn't get her on her feet to come back to her having got up and wandered off into the woods even further... .)

Needless to say she runs from me now if she sees me with a needle from 50 yrds away, two weeks of 4 injections a day.... can't really blame her on that one


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## redtailgal (May 6, 2012)

boothcreek said:
			
		

> Needless to say she runs from me now if she sees me with a needle from 50 yrds away, two weeks of 4 injections a day.... can't really blame her on that one


I'd run from you too! lol, poor ole girl.

Thats alot different than the reaction we had here, it was fatal in under a minute.

Thanks for sharing that information, it's good to know in case it ever happens here.


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## Royd Wood (May 6, 2012)

I seem to have missed this post. 
Great heifer to add to the herd and super pics. 
I used to check on a herd of Dexters for the neighbour when he took his summer holls but they just dispersed the herd (all gone to 2 good farms) so will miss looking after them this year
Not a fan of horns but Dexters suit them 

ps the neighbour had one cow who was 20 years old, pregnant again and fit as a fiddle when we loaded her


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