The Dairy Herd

This is the whole dairy herd.
The smallish calf in the front is Victor.
He was just born this spring and is a bull. He is starting to get horns and is really ornery and has a lot of personality. He drives his Mom, Ruby - the cow closest to him, to distraction sometimes with his Houdini like ways. Victor doesn't really appreciate fences. He sees no reason for them. If he could pick a favorite old country song it would be "Don't fence Me In". Victor comes and goes as he pleases and his Mom can beller all she wants....he will come back when he wants to and when he needs a drink of milk, but not before.
The cow in the back is Princess. She will calve this summer sometime. She is actually Ruby's mother. I am hoping that Princess will have another heifer.
We really like our Jersey's. They are so sweet and tame. Victor has some issues but....he won't live here forever so we just need to get along. Ruby had some issues when she was younger and has turned into a really nice cow. This is a picture of Ruby from a year or so ago. She had to have the green nose ring inserted because she kept forgetting that she was weaned and tried to get her fill of milk from her mother, Princess....who was also feeding her calf and actually Ruby had a calf too. It was just a big milk fest and it got way out of hand.

John finally had to employ some negative feedback to try to encourage her to give up the milk. The green plastic nose ring has spiky deals on it that would poke Princess when Ruby tried to suck and then Princess would kick her away. It was effective and Ruby doesn't have to wear it anymore. It made her look real tough though and in fact Cole referred to it as Ruby's Weapon of Mass Destruction. She never used it for evil with us....but it sure looked like it would be effective if she was so inclined. She is too nice to even think about the damage she could do.