Heifers are an open slate, no past of kicking, no history of mastitis, no calving difficulties, no known production. What I love about heifers is how they’re a lot like children and adapt easily to new life, they don’t have old habits or routines to change. If you feed a TMR ration they’re like “ok, this is the food”, if you feed grass hay and sprouted Barley, they’re like, “ok, this is the food”. If you expect them to walk over 40 acres daily they’ll do it, or if you want them to stay in the barnyard 24/7. They immediately adjust to your personal milking style—because it’s the only style they know. YOU get to establish their normal.
Sure, there’s a risk of difficulty calving, there’s a risk of her freshening with 3 quarters. But you know what?? Those risks don’t change with an older cow, your expectations is what’s different.
I look back at the 2 cows I trained as a 12/13 year old kid, there’s a lot I’d do differently now after training 100’s of cows. But I learned more from the first 2 cows and their heifers than I’ve ever learned from 4 cows again! Let your kids learn, let them learn to read a cow and know when she’s going to lift her leg or duck her head. Let them learn to watch a cow and hear what her body is saying. Kids learn so much faster and have more time to learn. I freshened in those two heifer calves when I was 14. One taught me that personality (and kicks) could be hereditary, the other proved it by being as easy as her dam. Both these fresh heifers were 3/4 beef and 1/4 Holstein. The nice one we milked until into her teen years, the other met an untimely death delivering her second calf.
Sure, I’ve had a smashed hand, and my toes stepped on, and miscellaneous bruises from cows as a kid, but it was lot less than what we experienced playing on the big trampoline!! Kids don’t need to be protected from the farm on the farm. They need to have a healthy fear of an electric fence, to know that death is final, that fire is hot, and pain is real. They need to experience life as life is.
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