YoYo is a red heifer calf born the middle of last January. A heifer is the word that describes a female cow that has not yet had a calf.

She has been featured here in "Hoof Prints" before (see two items below). YoYo is now 9 nonths and growing up to be a big girl. Here she is at the hay feeder with another of our calves, a dun (brown) heifer calf born last spring.

YoYo was an appropritate name for this little red heifer because she had so much energy she bounced around like a yoyo. All of our cow names start with "Y" this year. The American Highland Cattle Association publishes an slphabet where each letter corresponds to a year. By naming our Highland calves with names that start with the letter for a particular year, we always know how old they are when we call their names.

October is traditionally the month when we wean the spring calves from their mothers. It gets really noisy when we separate the calves from the cows. These girls will soon be in the weaning pen where they will need to stay for three weeks while their mothers dry up. It's important that the mothers stop lactating to conserve energy during the coler months so they are in good physical condition for calving again next spring.

October means the grass in the pastures is done growing for the year, so the cows are back to eating hay for the winter.The big round bales of hay are served in round feeders. We have enough feeders so all the cows can get food whenever they want it.

This year we had a wet spring so we put most of our first cutting hay into plastic bags. We bale the hay wet instead of dry and stuff the bales into long plastic tubes using a special machine that we rent.

The cows love bagged hay. Because it is baled wet, it ferments inside the bag producing "Haylage" which resembles saurkraut. It smells sweet and has a slight alcohol content. Happy cows!

January 23, 2011, the temperature reached 18 degrees below zero at our farm between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Here is a photo of our bull, Osceola Winchester, doing fine after being out in the cold all night. With the ice cycles hanging from his hair, Winchester tinkles when he walks. Reminds us of a Christmas carol.

The new calf, YoYo survived just fine snuggled up next to her mom. The sheep and goats also seemed to make it through the night without any problem.

How do they do it? We are all wrapped up in blankets inside, sipping hot tea.

This was a typical Sunday morning in the middle of January.  We started early with our grandsons’ hockey game at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo, followed by church, then a visit from Joe and Natalie Muma from Beaverton, Michigan, who came to see our herd of Scottish Highland cattle.

As Joe and Natalie were looking at the cows lying around the hay feeder calmly chewing their cuds, Natalie noticed a tiny red calf lying between Maggie and Winnie. Maggie had her calf two months earlier than expected. Last year she had the first calf of the season in the middle of March.

The calf was tiny and the temperature was very cold, so we carried her to the run-in shed where she could snuggle in dry, warm hay and wouldn’t get stepped on.  As we carried the calf, her mother walked with us, nose to nose with the calf. Maggie trusts us, but she is also a very protective mother.

The little red heifer calf (a heifer is a girl calf) was obviously not strong enough to get up and nurse, so we started her on a feeding tube filled with colustrum from the veterinary supply house. We keep several packages of dried colustrum in our first aid box, ready to mix with warm water and put in a feeding tube. We never know when a calf might need it, like this one.

After three days on the feeding tube, the little heifer graduated to a bottle. The first time on the bottle she drank one pint. The next time she drank two pints. The third time she drank three pints. Then she backed off to two pints. Her little tummy can only hold about two pints.

On the fifth day after she was born, when we went out to give the calf her bottle, we found her nursing like a champ. She had graduated from feeding tube to bottle to nursing in just five days. That is great progress for a calf born so early.

Once the heifer calf started nursing she had so much energy she was bouncing around the pen like she had springs in her feet. There is nothing cuter than a newborn calf when they discover how to use their legs. We named her YoYo as we observed her bouncing up and down around her mother.

Fortunately, calving problems are rare with Highland Cattle. 99% of the calves are born out in the pasture without incident. YoYo took a bit of extra work for a few days, but she is definitely worth the extra trouble. What a sweetie!

It's a bit difficult for the cows to eat when the hay feeder is full of bull. This is our bull "VW". He would much rather be inside the feeder than outside.

Several times we have had to tip the feeder up and over the bull with the tractor loader so he can get out. He is well fed and his fat stomach tends to get stuck between the uprights.

Fortunately for the cows, we have three other feeders and the bull can only jump into one at a time, so the cows do have options if they are hungry.

There's never a dull moment around Highland Cattle!

It's Christmas. Season's greetings from our family to yours!

We observe a Christmas Eve tradition of taking treats to the cows at midnight. They low gently as they crowd around the manger. It really does seem like they are singing Christmas Carols in celebration of Jesus' birth.

We wish you an abundance of joy and happiness as you celebrate Christmas.

May God bless you and your family.

A day on the farm is never dull. You never know what will happen at any given moment, but you can always count on something out of the ordinary.

The other day we looked out the kitchen window to see two cows standing in the driveway. We keep a good eye on the fences around the barn, so it was a surprise to see the cows out. Sometimes calves go through the fence, but not full grown cows.

We went out to the cows and called them to follow us into the pasture. Four more cows came around the corner from behind the barn for a total of six. This was really a surprise.

Surprise turned to shock when we realized these were the cows that had spent the summer on the other side of the farm. The entire herd over there had traveled a full mile through the woods and across the creek to the house.

When we called to the cows in the driveway, they eagerly followed us through the gate into the pasture with the rest of the cows. Our two herds were now one.

Inspecting the fences on the other side of the farm, we found a huge tree lying on the fence making an opening the cows could walk through. We are just glad they decided to walk that mile to the house instead of going the other way into town!

Scottish Highland Cattle are known for their long hair and their long horns. Both males and females have horns.

It’s rare that cattle break their horns, but when a horn is broken it needs to be repaired immediately. If blood vessels inside the horn are ruptured, the broken horn can cause tremendous pain to the animal as well as exposing the animal to serious health issues or even death. With immediate attention, horns sometimes grow back together if the break isn’t too serious.

Whopper is a dun (brown) yearling Scottish Highland bull who broke his horn this week. I went out to the pasture to find his horn bent and bleeding. There was danger that he could bleed to death or get an infection in the break, or that flies attracted by the blood could lay eggs which could enter his blood stream and mature into maggots eating his body from inside out. He needed immediate medical attention.

Doctor Brown, our farm veterinarian said most horn breaks are not serious, but just to be sure, he came out to the farm to check on Whopper. This particular break turned out to be very serious. Doc had to amputate the end of the horn. Blood spurted from the crushed blood vessels. Doc applied antibiotic paste liberally to the wound, then packed it with gauze, wrapped it with ace bandage, and then wrapped the entire horn in duct tape. As you might imagine, this was a tricky task on an 800 pound bull suffering from intense pain and without the benefit of an operating table or even anesthetic.

Whopper was already feeling better the next morning. He was up and eating normally, looking for treats. He looked like he was back to his normal good nature. The bandage should come off in about two weeks. The end of Whopper’s horn will scar over and he should have no ill effects from losing the end of his horn, although he may appear lopsided for awhile.

The core of a cow’s horn is made of bone. The bone grows from the skull through to the tip of the horn. The bone has blood vessels running throughout as well as nerves. The bone is a living part of the cow as with any other bone. With proper nutrition and good health, the horn will continue to grow throughout the life of the cow, although growth slows as the cow ages.

The outer shell of a horn is made of keratin. Keratin is a tough, non-mineralized, structural protein commonly found in fingernails, claws, hair, feathers and hooves.

A thin layer of tissue connects the outer keratin shell of the horn to the bone. This tissue is a living organism of the cow. Upon death of the cow, this tissue dies which will cause the outer shell to slip off the underlying bone.

Horns differ greatly from antlers found on deer, elk, and other species. The anatomy of antlers is simpler--antlers are made only of bone. Antlers die upon maturity each season and are shed annually. Therefore, they are not a permanent part of the animal's anatomy as cow horns are. Unlike antlers, cow horns do not branch out, having just one point at each end.

Meet Winchester, a new member of our Highland family. Winchester comes from Cooley's Green Acres in Rapid River, Michigan, about 100 miles West of the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Winchester is a yearling bull with a pedigree from the state of Washington. He is unrelated to Highland Cattle in Michigan, which gives us a chance to improve our herd genetics.

Winchester was bred at Heath Acres in Vancouver, Washington. His blood line comes from Five Star Farms in Trout Lake Washington on his father's side and Hart Acres in Tacoma Washington on his mother's side.

Winchester is light yellow in color, our first true yellow Highland. Most Highlands that are classified as yellow are really light red or strawberry blonde. Winchester is a true light yellow.

His disposition is wonderful. Winchester loves to be brushed and looks forward to eating treats out of our hands.

We are really excited that Winchester of Cooley's Green Acres has come to live at Wild Rose Meadows.

Daisies spring up in profusion in early summer. The grassy pastures of Wild Rose Meadows are full of the cheerful white and yellow flowers. Cows eat only grass and don't touch the daisies.

Daisies self seed, so even more daisies will bloom next year. One of the benefits of having so many wild flowers is the amount of food they provide for our bee hives.