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“Where’s Marvina?”
Luckily no one was around, or
they would have asked why I was
talking to myself. Again.
Having gone into the bam just
prior to starting evening milking
chores. I’d noticed that one of the
box stall doors was hanging open.
Stall resident Marvina was
nowhere in sight.
A big, old, lame cow. Marvina
has long been a favorite of ours
among the girls in the herd. She
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knows where she belongs, goes
there when she comes into the
bam and causes few disruptions
by running up and down the alley
or jumping into stalls that belong
to other herd members.
Our vet has often commented
on how he likes this particular
cow. Even the classifier on his last
visit paid per the honor of scoring
her as high as he could without
making her Excellent, since her
udder was absolutely bone-dry at
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the time. Having a dry cow scored
Excellent is almost unheard of.
This old cow possesses some
genetic, inborn high-strung ten
dencies. Her sire was a bull called
Astronaut, aptly named as it
turned out. because most of his
daughters quickly went “into
orbit" over the slightest non
routine event. As Astronaut
daughters go, Marvina might be
considered one of the more laid
back of his offspring.
A few years ago, she managed
to completely slice off a teat from
her udder in an accident with a
piece of metal. Though we were
devastated and fearful of how we
would ever handle her inbred
nervousness through a painful
injury, our fears turned out to be
unfounded. She barely even lifted
a foot through the treatment and
healing process. That quarter of
her udder ceased to produce milk
and has not caused her a single
problem since.
But where was she now? Prob
ably at the far end of the feed
alley, with her muzzle buried deep
in a feed cart piled full of com.
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That’s where escapees generally
gravitate to, gulping down
snitched feed so fast they can
hardly swallow, as if knowing
they will promptly be caught.
Then I glanced up and there
stood Marvina.
She had apparently made her
trek around die feed alley which
runs the length of the bam in front
of both rows of cows. Either she
had eaten her fill or the carts
woe empty. I unfastened the pro
tective chain which was still up
across one of the alleyways. She
strolled to the pen’s open door and
stepped inside, with a distinct
aloofness that silently questioned
why it had taken me so long to
notice ho* there.
Most of our cows are of rela
tively calm temperament, like
Marvina, primarily because cows
that are '“kickers” are just too
dangerous to fool with very long.
But then you have those inevitable
bovine individuals that ate more
irritating than they are dangerous.
Cows like Pokey.
Pokey is badly-named. Dancer
or even Clogger would be
more descriptive of her nature.
She has the nervous habit of con
stantly lifting her left foot while
being milked. Never the right foot,
just the left And, because she’s
always dancing with that left foot,
she keeps working a little closer
and a little closer to the next cow
on her left.
After her “dry” period vacation.
Pokey recently calved and came
back into the milking string. Fig
uring she always wanted to wiggle
to the left when being milked from
the right, we switched her to the
opposite side of the bam, where
she would be milked from the left
Maybe it would serve to neutralize
her tendency to drift sideways in
her stall.
Good theory, huh? ‘Cept, it
didn’t work. Pokey immediately
found that by "clogging” with her
left foot, she could stomp the
milker hoses and remove the pesty
machine that was distracting her
from stuffing her face with silage.
After a couple of milkings with
that routine, we threw up our
hands and switched her back to
being right-side milked. She
hasn’t removed the milker since.
Cow, 1; humans, 0.
Such aggravating cow habits
make Marvina’s harmless escape
and return trips look downright
amusing.
I thought about Pokpy and
gave Marvina a hug.
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