GRR Ophelia

When Ophelia was born, I couldn't have been more happy. I would now own two cows and in my mind that was good enough to qualify as a herd. And when she was old enough to have her own calves, why that was almost too much happiness to bear. I could already see the babies frisking about the back yard together.

A very young Ophelia

Ophelia grew up exactly as I'd hoped. She was easy to wean, easy to halter train, friendly, and brave. One morning while she was being weaned I went next door to Dean's pens to feed her. He was letting us use one of his pens for her until she was totally weaned and we could bring her back to our yard. Her horns were just barely beginning to bud out. While I was admiring her I noticed her head had what seemed to be blood on it. I quickly checked her over and couldn't find any other signs of blood. There were just a few scratches on her head. Just to make sure, I checked the pen for loose wires or anything else she could have gotten snagged on, but I couldn't find anything. Then I noticed the paw prints.

It was apparent. A coyote had tried to attack her. Although we live sort of in the suburbs, our lot backs up to a couple hundred acres of recharging ponds and a dirt canal runs along side of that. Also, we had heard coyotes yipping not too long before.

We made a call to the Fish and Game Department and the officer my husband talked to told us if we caught it in the act of attacking our livestock, we could feel free to blast away. Of course he didn't say it exactly like that, but that was the gist of it.

Beauty and the Beast

Just a couple weeks later another neighbor from the other end of the street told Dean she had been out for an early morning walk and saw what she thought was a coyote near Ophelia's pen. Not wanting her dogs to get involved in the fracas she turned around and left the area.

It wasn't until we no longer owned Ophelia that we think we figured out what happened. What we think happened was it wasn't a coyote after all. We now suspect a neighbor's dog from the other end of the street. His dog was yellowish, medium-large sized, and from a distance could easily pass as a coyote. And, his dogs were always roaming around the ponds.

Grown up Ophelia

Finally it was time to breed. I did not have a bull, and I still had a couple straws left over from the last year. We began the process of starting her to cycle by giving her the lutelyse shots. Everything was on schedule. The vet did the insemination. Two months later he declared her pregnant. That meant in 8 months she should calve.

Eight months came and went and nothing happened. The vet came out and figured the embryo must have been absorbed or aborted and it was too small yet for me to notice. We started again.

The palpation showed her to be pregnant. At about her fourth month I was doing some yard work out back when some acquaintances rode by on their horses. They stopped to chat and one of them said, "Your cow is bleeding!"

I looked at Ophelia and sure enough, she had a bloody discharge. I knew that meant she had aborted again.

We tried once more, and again to no avail. I was starting to get discouraged. The vet recommended a live breeding. The hope was, once she was bred naturally, without the drugs, she would carry to term and after that should have no more problems.

I called a person who had called me once when he was making inquiries about the breed and AI'ing. It turns out he had a bull on loan at his place. He would board Ophelia for a few bales of hay and the small stud fee would be paid to the bull owner once the cow was confirmed pregnant.

It took only about two hours to bring Ophelia to meet "William", the bull. After some small talk we left for home with our fingers crossed. Alas, once again it was not to be. Only this time it wasn't because Ophelia lost a pregnancy, it was because William was an elderly, short-legged bull. The people at the ranch said they actually had witnessed him attempting to mount Ophelia, but he was just too short to reach.

Then I called the first breeder I almost bought a cow from (the one that was out of country earlier) but he didn't allow outside cows to his ranch. I called the breeder I had bought Ophelia's mother from to see if he had an unrelated bull, and if he would be willing to offer stud service. He did, and he was.

We made the arrangements and it was a long day for me. I made the turn-around trip myself, loaded up with CD's and singing at the top of my lungs. I was a bit hoarse by the time I got home.

Long story short: Ophelia did get pregnant but must have absorbed the embryo again. I made the unhappy decision to sell her. I don't have big, lush pastures, so my animals are on a "dry lot" situation, where I have to feed them hay am and pm. If I had had my own bull I would have kept her and kept trying, that's how much I liked her, but I was throwing money down the tubes, as it were.

I took her to the local auction yard. There was an old man who admired her as I was unloading and asked me if she ate "fire weeds". I wasn't really sure what that was but I told him I was pretty sure she would because she sure seemed to eat everything else. I don't know who ended up buying her because they never re-registered her in their name. I hope it was the old man. He seemed very nice.