Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Is Dolly trained?

Tonight Leifschon and Justin were on deck to milk.  I have been in the barn morning and night for weeks, and it is taking its toll.  This morning went pretty well with Dolly - we think we have the magic combination.  We hide her calf and feed her a bit to keep her quiet, then bring cows in barn minus Dolly.  She won't come in at that point.  But we leave the door open, and she sticks the front third of her body in the door - no more than that, though.

Last night, after running her all over the pen, she finally went into the milking parlor once we let the other girls out, so this morning I went ahead and let the other cows out without shutting down the system, and as they walked out, she walked in.  Androo was behind her and shut the door.  We got her behind the holding bars and voila! she was milked in no time!

I relayed this whole routine to Leifschon and Justin and told them I was going to stay in the house, to call me if there was a problem.  An hour later I saw Justin taking all of the cows, including Dolly, back to the paddock.  Hurrah!  All done, no phone calls.  This is the first day that has come in under 14 hours of hard labor for me in a long time.  :)  :)  :)

No comments:

Post a Comment