A Plum Western Milk Cow
- May 21, 2024
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
When I was a kid I remember many milk cow prospect heifers and cows going through the place. Dad was at the cattle sales all winter buying yearlings and if a likely dairy type heifer came through, he’d buy
her, run her with a bull and later sell her as a milk cow. Some went to dairies, many went to farms and
ranches that needed a family cow. Some families had gotten milk cows from Dad for years.
One particular heifer I remember very clearly. The heifer was a beautiful two year old Brown Swiss. She had grown out nicely and was starting to bag up when Dad decided it was time to get her stanchion
broke and used to be handled. This heifer wasn’t wild, but not a gentle pet either. He would put her in the stanchion where she could be tied over against the fence to learn to stand still while she was hobble broke and handled. She liked her grain very well, so she learned to go in the stanchion pretty quickly.
However, that’s when her true nature came to the surface. She could kick. I mean, really kick. She was long legged as those big Swiss can be, and she could kick you up by the stanchion or straight behind. She could kick you in the belly when standing off to the side away from her. Her accuracy was astounding.
The fence she stood against was also our saddle rack in the barn, so four or five saddle hung on it. At the end of that fence was a short gate that went into that compartment, and that gate is where Dad’s saddle hung with the blankets over it. I remember one night as I was watching from a safe distance, Dad was attempting to tie that heifer over. The rope ran from the stanchion neck bar, at about mid-body level, and was supposed to go around a post that was just even with the heifer’s hind end. With it in place, the rope could be drawn up to a comfortably snug state and tied off on the next post down. Nice idea, but Dad was having a doozy of a time trying to get that rope around the first post. That big heifer would jump and kick in every direction, all the while eating her grain. Dad finally decided to tie it off to the next post down where the gate latched. As he was trying to get the rope around that post, that sweet heifer kicked with both hind feet, head high, and thankfully missed Dad. But, she kicked his saddle off of that gate. It didn’t seem that it would have been possible, but she had. He sure cussed her then!
Progress with the heifer was slow, to say the least, but he was as determined as she was, but was
understandably sick to death of her. She was a beautiful heifer with a perfect bag. She was about ready to calve when he got a call from a ranch family in southeastern Montana that was looking for a Brown Swiss milk cow and they’d heard that Dad might have one. He was honest and told them about her and explained that she was pretty “western”. They sure wanted to come and look at her anyway, so a day was set and they came.
When they got there, Dad put her in the stanchion and showed them how she handled, which would
have scared most buyers off, but this couple thought they could get her over that. They were young and
the woman said that the heifer was what she’d always wanted. They ended up buying her on the provision that Dad would deliver her, as they didn’t have a means to haul her home. He agreed he would.
He worried over the sale of that heifer and was feeling terrible about it, in spite of having represented the heifer honestly in every way. A spring storm had blown through the region, with rain and snow, just
before the delivery date, but Dad had a stock rack on his pickup and chains, so he loaded the heifer up and headed for Montana on the designated day.
When he turned off onto the “road” into the ranch, a two track trail, and he chained up. It was a sunny
day and the snow was about melted, but the ground was muddy and had some gumbo to it. He moved
along in low range and four wheel drive, following the road for several miles before seeing any cattle.
From the ridge, he watched as a cowboy on a horse roped a cow, laid her out, and got off and worked the bag over, then suckled the calf. Those old Hereford cows pink bags had sunburned in the spring sunshine on the snow, and some weren’t letting their calves nurse their sore teats. As Dad crept along in the mud, he watched this rider rope and throw another couple of cows, tie them down and start the calves nursing. He was pretty impressed with the cowboy, who never missed a loop.
The cowboy must have seen Dad getting close to the place, for as Dad got to the ranch, he saw the
cowboy riding into the corrals. As the cowboy approached, with mud spattered face, hat, chaps and jacket, he recognized the young wife who had always dreamed of having a pretty Brown Swiss milk cow. She had been the one roping, tripping and tying down those cows that needed their bags doctored and calves suckled.
He said that he quit worrying about the heifer right then and there. If that lady couldn’t handle that heifer, there wasn’t anyone, anywhere, that could. So, his conscience didn’t bother him when he unloaded her and left her there. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she’d get milked one way or another and that the heifer wasn’t going to buffalo that young woman.
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Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....