"Heat" in February

Photo:  Bessie and "baby" Ruby enjoy the snow during a much quieter day Today's only real situation of note is Ruby's LOUDNESS.  She's been through heat cycles before, but maybe this is a full-blown one and the others were practice sessions?  Bessie the matriarch has NEVER Moo-ed on this level of insistence or noisiness. It should be noted....Ruby is a July calf, not quite 8 months old, but almost as tall as her mother Bessie (because of her Holstein genes on daddy's side).  Ruby first showed signs of a heat cycle when she was 5 or 6 months old and has been through several obvious 21-day cycles (4?  5?), enough to get on the calendar as the date to watch for.   Did I mention she's still nursing? As in.....she could become pregnant herself, but she's still helping herself to Bessie's milk on a fairly constant basis.  This has come in very handy when we aren't able to milk the cow for whatever reason, and we can leave Ruby and Bessie together overnight so that Ruby can do the job for us.  But it does seem rather bizarre that a sexually mature heifer should still be drinking mama's milk! Have you ever had a cat that wasn't spayed in time and went through her first heat cycle?  Who meowed unceasingly at every window or pawed at every door, looking for a way out where the males were supposedly waiting?  That's what our previously sweet little Ruby is reminding me of today.  Her noises are usually soft and low, rather gentle.  Not today! This morning, I thought they were out of hay because of the commmotion (fat chance, when they strew it all over and probably could eat through the entire winter if they would only just clean up what's on the floor or ground).  Sometimes there is moo-ing when they want fresh hay. Sometimes they Moo when their water is mostly covered with a thick layer of ice and they want an easier time of getting a drink, but that wasn't the case this morning. The only other time we heard moo-ing like today's was once or twice before Lucy, our first heifer, was artificially inseminated.  (She was 18 months old at the time.)   Once in a while, we hear it across acres of cornfields, as the dairy herd to the north of us voices their own interest in becoming mommies. Anyway, the resounding and infinitely annoying "MOOOOO" continues out there, quiet only when Bessie allows Ruby to drink some milk.  With Ruby very intent on doing the "cow-in-heat" behaviors (which include mounting other females), Bessie is smart to keep her sassy young calf away from her tail/udder end as much as possible.  :( When we had a cat who needed to be spayed, the temptation was so strong to just open the door and toss that cat out and deal with the kittens later, that's how annoying and irritating the mewing and craziness was.  I'm tempted to do that very thing with Ruby (well, actually not, since 1: she's too young to be bred, since 2: there is no bull within miles of here, since 3: we want her to have a Dutch Belted calf and there's no DB bull within hundreds of miles.....), but closing her in the barn so that we don't have to hear the earsplitting "Moo's" for a while IS pretty tempting as an alternative! Tomorrow it should be quiet and peaceful out there again.  Except that the kids might have a snow day......  Sigh. Update on the half-frozen chicken:  She does seem to be the one that wasn't particularly healthy or social all winter.  She is recovering nicely, even has the use of her toes to perch herself on the edge of the food bowl.  I was worried that her toes were frozen so badly that they would have lost all potential for living tissue to survive.  We'll see.  Her companions are a "Cherry Egger" hen who looks so ragged that it's almost painful to look at her, and our one-year old pure-bred Barnevelder rooster, who was hunched over in a corner and looking like the respiratory sickness was taking over again.  Three sick or recovering birds, and Michael is asking when I want him to "take care of them".  We'll give them until tomorrow and see how it looks. Laura http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/