Good news, cow #2 is coming home on Saturday, so long as her TB test is negative tomorrow. I am so ridiculously excited it's not true! Yesterday my faithful dog and I checked the fence line as nothing has been in the trap in years. It took all afternoon, but we both had fun exploring. I'll have to do a little fixing up tomorrow but nothing major, and put a water trough in there. I think she'll love it, she'll have eight acres of native pasture to explore with a nice creek and a warm barn every night. It will make a change from living on a dairy farm.
The first cow seemed to have been abused pretty badly. She would look away whenever I went near her like she was trying to pretend I wasn't there
She has quite a few minor health issues, sores from where the glue on her sale stickers had burned her, a knot on her neck, bad feet, underweight and a scabby coat. She was a good girl and just stood and let me milk her without being tied or fed, but I felt like it was stressful to her to be handled a lot which wouldn't be good for a family milk cow.
The other cow the lady had was quite different. She's 2 years old, I don't know when she freshened but she is in milk. She's a registered Jersey and the AJCA have said they can most likely get me her papers; she has her tags but didn't sell with her paperwork. She is a small cow, around 600lbs but she also needs a fair bit of weight. She is very friendly and gentle, and allowed me to check out her feet and milk her while she was loose and didn't threaten to kick or swat me. She has one injured quarter that i'll get checked out, but it produces milk and does not appear to be mastitis. It doesn't hurt her. She is just precious.