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JENNIFER AGAIN

Now that Jennifer had become a cow in full profit - you will remember the dance she led us when she had her first calf -she was put with the rest of the cows. At no time did we ‘molly’ her or treat her like a house cow but she was afraid of no human and few other cows. My nephew, at the age of four was walking across a field eating an apple. Although his parents were with him she walked up behind him and, putting her head over his shoulder, relieved him of his apple!

Her second calf, fathered by our own Shorthorn bull, was a large white bull calf. His birth in the loose box on a foul November day was a little difficult and by the evening he had still not stood up. In fact, just before my wife and I went out I went round to see him and afterwards said that we should be lucky if he was still alive in the morning. We got back at midnight to find my Mother and sister in a highly nervous state. They had heard, above the storm, someone knocking at the door and stamping about on the concrete outside. Armed with poker and stick they opened the door but the wind blew the candle out and they slammed the door and locked it. I laughed at them and went around the yard as usual before I went to bed. The door of the loose box was swinging in the wind. Jennifer was tied up inside but there was no sign of the calf. I went back to tell my wife so that we could search for it. The concrete outside the house was covered with a thin layer of frozen sleet and in the light of the torch we could see the cloven marks of the calf. We eventually found him at the bottom of the garden in the teeth of the wind. He’d far less sense than his Mother.

After her third calf I felt that Jennifer was not giving as much milk as she promised and said that someone else might be able to get more out of her than we could. Despite the outcry from the womenfolk I determined to sell her when she next calved. I booked her in at the market but during the preceding week I could get almost no milk from her. The calf had what it wanted but her udder was still distended and she looked uncomfortable. The night before the market I called the vet. After examining her and finding nothing wrong he asked if I still had an old fashioned milking stool. When I fished it out from under a pile of junk in one of the sheds he suggested I try milking her by hand. To my surprise I was able to take all her milk and when the lorry came the next morning she went off amid a shower of tears with no ‘show’ at all. I had put a reserve on her and in the afternoon she came back to a great welcome on the same lorry!

Six months later I was able to wean her onto the machine again. That lactation her yield went up from under 500 gallons to 940. She obviously preferred the personal touch!

Ever since I’ve lived here I’ve slept in the end of the house that overlooks the farm buildings. From the other bedrooms one can see the village down in the valley and farther still down along the river, West Milton. My window merely looks over corrugated iron and a little bit of Eggardon in the background but I am always able to see or hear if something is not as it should be.

One winter morning about one a.m. came the blare of a cow in obvious pain. I slipped on a dressing gown and grabbed a torch. There appeared to be nothing wrong in the stall so I went back to bed. I was out twice in the next hour but all the cows were stood or lying in their places and all was calm. I was halfway back to the house when I heard it again. I dashed back and opened the door just in time to see Jennifer thrusting her horns into the side of her neighbour. When she heard the door open again she hastily stepped up into her place but I had spotted her chain on the floor in front of her. I tied a knot in it to make it shorter and went back to bed.

It is my experience that if someone wants an animal enough to make an offer it is foolish to refuse. I refused several offers for Jennifer. After her seventh calf she went down with milk fever. This is not the alarming thing it was once but she did not respond to the treatment that morning and I called the vet again late in the evening. She died within minutes of his arrival. I’ve never had a cow before or since with ‘Personality’. I suppose you could call her a ‘Cow of a Lifetime’!