Hope was our very first cow, and our educator in all things cow. She was an incredible girl, super patient with all of our beginner blunders, although even her patience was tested in the beginning when it would take us FOREVER to milk. She had back quarters that never ended! She taught us about handling milking, and the copious quantities of milk she gave necessitated our ventures into yogurt, butter, and cheese. We also learned that we didn't need as much milk as she was giving. Jerseys, modern dairy cows in general, have been bred to produce so much milk that they can basically milk themselves to death. They frequently need supplementation with rich feeds and grains, which in a of itself is dangerous. The microflora that digest grain in a cows rumen create a more acidic environment and the microflora that digest grass. That means that a dairy cow who needs a lot of grain supplementation has a consistently more acidic gut that she should have, which can have very negative consequences down the line. Hope loved her grain!!! And that's what killed her. She died of a perforated ulcer in her fourth stomach. Her stomach lining had been thinned and weakened by years of a chronically acidic gut environment, and finally one spot got too thin and that was that. The knowledge we gained from talking with our vet about Hope in particular and dairy cows in general got us asking lots of questions about what we wanted to do with cows, and where we wanted our herd to go. That knowledge helped us decide that we needed to change which breed we had. We love the look of the Jerseys, with their huge brown eyes, beautiful coloring, and friendly temperaments. That lead us to the mini Jerseys. They have the same beautiful body, and friendly temperament, but they don't produce nearly as much milk and their smaller size makes them more manageable for a family with little children. So, to quote CS Lewis, "Further up and further in!"

Thanks to Hope for all she taught us. Her halter still hangs on the wall in the barn at the homeplace in Greeley where our journey into the world of cows began.

Ginger was one of our ladies who we had high hopes for, but we could never get her bred. Turns out she had polycystic ovaries, fairly common in high producing dairy lines. We know now some things we could have done to help her, maybe, but at the time, we didn't. That being said, she also helped us learn about the need to develop a naturally strong herd that doesn't need interventions to breed or thrive. If you have a mama who needs drugs to get pregnant, chances are you'll perpetuate that into your herd. Not a good plan!

If there was ever a cow with the perfect personality, it was Summer. She was born in the early morning of June 21, so we named her Summer and she brought joy to us every day of her life. She was still quite young when we got sheep and they loved her! If we ever needed to move the sheep anywhere, all we had to do was halter Summer, open the gate and walk to wherever we needed to crew moved and along they would all come, following Summer.

There are some animals who's deaths reverberate over and over and over in your life, often because you feel that your own lack of knowledge was a contributing factor. You do the best you can, but sometimes your best isn't enough. We were in our infant learning stages about holistically managed grazing during Summer's first pregnancy and so we didn't quite know how to manage or even evaluate the balance between proper grazing impact, available nutrition, and animal health. Summer was looking great, but she started getting a very loose stool and then she was shaky, so we brought her home from the pasture the animals were grazing at the time, took her to the vet and the on duty vet thought it was probably a minor sicky bug. She gave her an antibiotic and an electrolyte and sent us home (how I hate the antibiotic bandaid for everything). The next day she went into convulsions and passed away. We took her to our standard vet for an autopsy and his conclusion was large bull calf + small rumen=inability to get enough food to support everything. Add on to that owner error in pasture management and it's a perfect storm.
We are so, so sorry Summer! We miss you and your beautiful, gentle soul!!!

Update:
The summer of 2023 we had an experience that led to some clarity and peace about Summer's passing and what actually took her from us. We had one of our girls go into heat the same day the temperature finally kicked into high gear for the year and she spent the day running around mounting everyone instead of drinking and eating. The next day she had diarrhea. Then it became bloody diarrhea. Then she started to look just like Summer did the day before she passed: spacey, staggering, lethargic, etc... We had just returned from a Pioneer Trek where we learned a lot more about dehydration and watching Sage, it suddenly clicked. She was suffering from dehydration because she couldn't drink enough water to offset what she was losing in her stool. We grabbed the intubator that we had for calves and started pouring electrolytes down her. Within a day or two she was eating again and getting back to normal mobility (her saga didn't end there and got worse before it got better due to her own greediness, but that is a story for another day).
I realized that though Summer may have been struggling with any number of things, the thing that ultimately killed her was dehydration from diarrhea. Unfortunately, that learning came three years too late to save our beautiful Summer girl, but our experience with Summer coupled with learnings from a Pioneer Trek saved Sage, and I am grateful for that.