A Gertie The Bloatey update

I can't figure out that cow! Do cows normally just stay bloated for weeks on end? All the things I read seem to indicate that it's a very short lived problem. It's been 3 weeks since we naively fed her the lush grass that she gulped down. She inflated like a balloon 24 hours later. We tried sending a hose down her throat - no way was she having that. She fought so hard I thought she'd break her neck. I sent soybean oil down her throat, she didn't like it but I got it down her. Next I gave her baking soda in water with a giant syringe into her mouth. She loves it, goofy cow. She shoves her big gooey cow lips through the fence bars for more.




I shake 1 cup of baking soda in a quart of water & give it to her roughly every other day or whenever her bloat intensifies again. It never goes away, just fluctuates. Here she is on a day her bloat was less. Her left side isn't extremely puffed out.  On bad days her left side is taut & sticking way out. 

Same day as above. The "triangle" on her left side is where I see the greatest fluctuation. On her bad days you can't make out the triangle at all as opposed to her left side where there is always a sunken triangle over her stomach. When I press on the bloated triangle area I hear frothy sounds & she burps. She burps a lot.

 When the bloat first set in her milk production plummeted. But it has since gone right back up. She's eating, acting normal, and seems perfectly happy. She's such a great cow. Mellow, sweet, loves her humans, and is absolutely perfect for us couple of urbanites-gone-country to learn to milk on. I'm amazed at how she stands there & puts up with us tugging & yanking on her teats, trying to figure out how the heck to milk a cow. We're very lucky to have her.

And look at how much cream she gives us!! More than half of these jars are filled with cream. Her milk is so, so good.

She gets as much grass hay as she wants per day, a leaf of alfalfa hay, and a coffee can of grain twice daily. We give her the occasional apple or corn. Her pasture is brown & grazed down. I can't imagine that anything she's still eating is keeping her all bloated up. 

On a non-bloat related note, I never mentioned what flippers our cow's feet came with! Here is a picture from just after we brought her home. Look at those terrible flippers, I mean hooves! We had a farrier out to trim them. He was shocked at how easy it was for him to go about sawing, trimming & shaping her hooves while she was loosely tied to a fence post. He actually gushed throughout the process what an amazing cow she was, how tame & sweet. Did I mention how lucky we are to have her? 

We were told by her previous owners that she is bred & due to calve "in April". I have no idea when in April! Also, her previous owners had her for only one month and didn't know a great deal about her history. And yet she's such a sweet cow even after being passed around so much. From what I understand, we can possibly tell she's for sure pregnant when she's about 5 months along because we will see & feel calf movement on her right side. I haven't seen any signs of heat & neither did her previous owners so that's a plus (being in heat would show that she's not pregnant). What a crazy adventure that will be! I have a lot to read about cow midwifery. :)


So far I've made & loved: vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream, custard, and cottage cheese from her milk.
Along with enjoying an endless supply of cups full of delicious, cold, nourishing raw cow milk. Yum.