Hello everyone! My name is Angela Miller I am currently a sophomore at UMaine. My major is Zoology with a minor in Animal Veterinary Science. I’m proud to say I’m also apart of UMADCOWS this semester! I have received some great experiences at the UMaine Witter Farm. For instance instead of drinkin’ on my 21st I got to go milking which was a lot more fun if you ask me. I have never worked with cows before and I’ve learned they each have unique behaviors, they remind me of dogs. Hence, why even when I get hurt, I still love them. My favorite experience at the farm this semester has been watching the mama cows give birth. Seeing the love, they give to their baby’s and just watching the miracle of life happen in person is wonderful and completely worth the wait. It is also such a wonderful hands on learning experience
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Hi, my name is Gabbie Guillemette and I am a sophomore in the Animal and Veterinary Science program here at UMaine! I am currently in the UMADCOWS program, which means I get to spend most of my time with the girls here at Witter, which isn't very new to me. I was in 4-H for 11 years and I have been showing my families dairy cattle since I was just three years old, so of course I love being around cows.
I am also part of the Maine Animal Club on campus. This club is in charge of the Orono Royal that will be occurring on April 27 at 9 AM. For the Royal, we are all assigned one of the heifers in the barn and we train them for several weeks before the show. To train them, we have to teach them to walk on a halter, to stop, back up, walk slowly with their head up, and to set their feet up in a show stance. The Royal is really important to Witter as these heifers will eventually become part of the milking herd. As these heifers get bigger, they become more difficult to handle, which makes milking and even walking them around a struggle to the students and employees of the farm. If they get trained at a young age, they will have the basics and have been handled, so they are more likely to cooperate with us as we train them to be part of the milking herd. This year, I was assigned to a heifer named River who will be a year old in May. When I first started working with her, she didn't really know what was going on. As I have continued working with her, she has become the biggest baby who will follow me where ever I go. Working with River has really impacted me because I grew up around Milking Shorthorns and have always wanted to show a Holstein. She has proven to me that hard work really does pay off, as she started out barely halter broken. Now she will do almost anything I ask, except for backing up, but we are working on that! Before the show, we have to give them a bath to make them clean and very white for the show. We then have to give them a hair cut for the show. Clipping them before the show not only makes them look nice, but it helps them stay cool as we get into the hotter months. After they get their haircut, they get a funky mohawk on their back. This makes the heifer look like she has a straight back in order to make her look more dairy. This is one of the most important parts of fitting a heifer for show. Since the show is right around the corner, it is a very busy time for the students participating in it. We continue to work with our heifers and are beginning to train them on a show halter, which is a very pretty leather halter that is more formal than the typical rope halter we use in training. We hope to see you all attend the show this weekend! Hello! My name is Caitlyn and I’m a part of the UMADcows this spring! One of my favorite parts of this farm are the heifers in the livestock barn. These ladies are so cute and FULL of personality. They all love doing their own thing, and love the attention that the visitors of the farm give them. Some of them have been moved up to further pens because they are closer to having their babies! These girls are all around 2 years old and full of energy! More of them will be moved up the pens and soon moved into the dairy barn!
My name is Josie Harper, and I am a sophomore in the University of Maine UMADCOWS program. If you come up to the farm, you’ll notice that each of our cows and most our calves and heifers have ear tags, and I thought that I would explain why we ear tag them and how to read them. In the pictures I’ve included, we have a mother and daughter pair to showcase the two main types of ear tags that you will see at Witter Farm. Ninja, the calf, has a circular white tag on her left ear. This has a number on it, which identifies her within our specific herd (she is Number 453). These tags also have their national registration number. This number stays with them for life and is also written on the blue ear tags, which I will go over in a minute. The white circular ear tags are also able to identify this specific cow anywhere she goes, and can be used to track where a cow came from and what herds she’s cycled through, or even if she comes from a different state or country. We only give the girls the white ear tags, since we plan on keeping them within the UMaine herd. The boys are given an ear tag in their right ear, which is orange instead of blue, and this not only identifies that they are boys, but it will also have their name and their date of birth written on the tag. Once the girls are old enough to be weaned, they are given their two blue ear tags that can be seen in the photo of Nile (Ninja’s mom). The one that goes on their right ear will have their name and birthday on it, and the one that goes in their left ear will have their parents’ names on it. So Nile’s ear tags say “Nile” on her right, and “Nefertiti” and “Racer” on her left. This helps us to track family bloodlines in the herd, and since both tags have their herd number on them, they are also an easy means of identifying any cow in the herd. We just put some blue ear tags on Dallas and Madeline in the calf barn this week, and we’ll be putting new tags on Ninja soon, so if you’d like, stop by the calf barn and check them out!
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