Our little Callie Moo is 6 months old!! We’ve been super busy since she was born, including house guests twice, summer harvest, an unexpected lamb, and both farmers working ridiculous hours off farm, but she’s grown up anyways.

She spent the first ten weeks away from her momma due to an old teat injury that almost killed her momma this lactation. Her momma will never be bred again and has now become a pet, but cows are herd animals, so even though some told us to put her momma down, we know Callie Moo needs the interaction.

Callie Moo was bottle-raised and was halter and lead trained daily for the first few months. She has been a joy, except… she developed a bad habit of head-butting me… hard. No matter what I did, from pushing her away, to slapping her shoulder, to yelling at her, to thumping her nose, she only got more and more determined to head-butt. That might be cute at two months of age, but it isn’t cute at 700 pounds!! I tried numerous things that didn’t work and didn’t know how I was going to get her to stop.

Enter momma! Once Belle was dried off, we let Callie Moo go back with her momma. Yes, she tried to nurse repeatedly, but that’s a different issue to deal with. We were hoping Belle would teach Callie some manners, especially get her to stop head-butting. Well, it took Belle an entire weekend to stop that bad behavior. Callie Moo never head-butted me again. I don’t know how they do that!

(Callie with momma Belle at 10 weeks)

Belle tends to be a bit food aggressive, so Callie Moo has been pushed around by Belle and has backed off and become submissive. I hope that continues even after Belle is no longer here. A submissive cow is a nice cow!!

We plan to use sexed semen on Callie Moo next summer for her to deliver a beautiful heifer calf in 2026. I hope Callie Moo is as good of a momma as Belle is.

As far as Belle’s future, we’re moving a day at a time. There’s only so much land and only so many animals one can keep, and if an animal is not contributing to the farm, their future is questionable. We love her though, so we’re not making any decisions any time soon. She’s enjoying being with her baby for the first time ever. Her last two babies were moved from her to fulfill their destiny as family milk cows. As a matter of fact, her last baby (April Love) is due with her own heifer calf March 2025 at a farm nearby.

Maybe Belle will still be around to enjoy her grandbaby from Callie Moo here in 2026. Yes, there will be lots of pictures! 🙂