Once upon a time I wrote about how naught Nelly was and you can read about it here.
Nelly is not so naughty anymore. In fact, Nelly has turned out to be an awesome young cow. She is what we call a "first calf heifer". That means that this is her first time to calve and everything is new to her. The birth experience, the calf, being a mother, nursing the calf and being milked by humans. Never having been affectionate and not doing well tied up short or put in small spaces, I was a little concerned about how Nelly would adjust to the milking routine. I am happy to say that there could not have been an easier cow to teach! She has been absolutely wonderful. There were a few kicks in the beginning but they weren't the kind that are meant to take one's head off. Instead it was more of the kind that said, "I am engorged and sore and it really hurts when you go squeezing on my teats like that!" She has settled into the routine with ease now and does not kick. The first few times in the stanchion, she peed and pooped but she has stopped doing that as well. She seems very relaxed in the stanchion now. In fact, the morning when I finished milking her, she was free to go but instead hung around for a while. She couldn't make me more proud!
I have held on to Nelly longer than I intended to because I just wanted to make sure that she was going to turn out to be a good family cow. As fate would have it, a very nice man and his family came to visit and really like Nelly. This weekend, Nelly will be going to her new home to live with her new family and I can send her away with confidence, knowing that once she adjusts to her new routine, she will make them a wonderful cow.
The hard part is that over the course of this journey with Nelly, I have grown to love her. It will be hard to see her go.