Yesterday we had our vet come out to the homestead to take a look at Brown Cow. Nothing was wrong but Rosie wanted to have her checked out to see how Cow is doing with her pregnancy.
For some reason Cow is in utter dread of the Vet, but she has only seen him twice now. Normally Cow is very docile, we bring her food and she just stands there while we milk her, check her for wounds and do a few other "cow maintenance" things. We never have problems with cow running way, shying from the milker, or any of the other problems we hear other cow owners have with their animals. We consider ourselves very lucky to have such a well behaved cow. But when the vet walks onto the property Cow flips out, a lot. When she sees the vet she starts to become very alarmed, to the point of running and kicking and jumping. And when you have a 850 lb cow trying to jump away from you and kick everything in site, you are going to have a bad day. I really don't understand where her dislike comes from, the Vet is a nice man and has always been gentile to Cow (He has only seen her twice!)but she has it in her head that he is some sort of Cow torturing monster. The First time the Vet came out Cow actually hurt herself while trying to get away from him, the second time I knew better and had her stoutly secured before he came outside.
In any case Cow is about 5 months pregnant (9-10 months gestation) and seems to be in very good health. So all is well. It looks like we can be expecting a calf sometime in the Spring. If the calf is a female we will most likely try and sell her, if the calf is a male we will see about fattening him for a year and then give him a "retirement party".
In case anyone in our neck of the woods needs a farm animal Vet we would recommend "The Large Animal Practice" based in Los Osos. A good Vet who is very reasonable priced, and does not mind dealing with the occasional neurotic cow.
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