Decks the Jersey Bull is Almost 3 Months Old!
It is hard to believe that Decks our Jersey bull calf is almost 3 months old! He was born before Christmas and is named after the Christmas carol, “Deck the Halls”. After leaving him with Beatrice for a couple of days to nurse, we separated them.
Decks is now in a pen beside the chickens and ducks. The little Jersey bull will be moved out with the big cows as soon as he grows a bit taller. We use a hot wire to keep the cows in the pasture and he is short enough to go under it right now.
Decks has been drinking his milk twice a day from a bottle.
Bottle feeding has 2 purposes:
- It bonds the calf to us.
- We control how much milk he gets and how much we get. If left to his own, he would gorge on Beatrice’s milk and we would have none.
He has just graduated from a bottle to drinking his milk from a bucket so, he is definitely growing up!
Beatrice did well with being separated from her calf. She only stood by the fence for a day or so moooing at him. That to me is really sad but they do get over it quickly. Now, she doesn’t seem to remember that he is her calf.
If we didn’t separate them, he would drink lots of her milk and she would not want to milk out during milking. It is amazing how milk cows seem to be able to hold their milk for their calf. After all, the whole purpose of having a family milk cow is to get milk!
As you can see from the photos, he is fawn colored with big brown eyes. He is a pretty little Jersey bull and has a good temperament. We plan to keep him as a bull and breed him with Maybelle, another little heifer we have.
I have read about the dangers of having a bull around and how their temperament can change when the hormones click in so we will see….
Do you have any experience with cows or bulls? I would love to hear about it so leave a comment!
I have 2 full jersey cows and 1 jersey cross that normally run with our jersey bull. The bull isn’t as issue as long as he has company. So right now he is a bachelor out on the prarie spending time with our smallest angus bull that we like to use on the angus heifers. The two get along well and are both much more manageable as companions. We haven’t had any issues with the jersey bull as long as he isn’t left on his own then he gets testy. I wouldn’t recommend “trusting” him once he’s full grown…our bull is resonably tame but still gets grumpy and could seriously hurt someone if they weren’t aware of the situation. I can move him out of the barn stalls myself and feed him grain but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t tried seeing who was going to be boss.
Hopefully where your prospective bull was hand raised by you he will be more friendly as an adult but once your girls are cycling around him make sure your keeping an eye on him. Our bull is 1500lbs and built like a brick house.
Chelsa, thank you! I do try to remind the children periodically to be be careful. It is so easy to become complacent and just think he will be fine and friendly but he could turn quickly when hormones are involved! So far, we are doing well with him.
I have a question for you. We are new to the Jersey cow milking and have 2 bulls about 2 1/2 months old. When you took Decks off, how much more milk did you start to see? We are just wondering how much milk our guys are actually consuming right now. Thank you!!
Heidi, I found that they take about 1 gallon a day. Once we take a calf off the mother, we bottle feed them a 1/2 gallon twice a day with water in between especially in the summer.