Illegitimate Profit

Sexual indiscretion has been known to get folks into real trouble. But with hormones bein’ what they are I suppose that it’s inevitable that it will happen on occasion, and our outfit isn’t any exception.

I don’t think he was really to blame. After all, she’d bat the long lashes on those big liquid eyes of hers and flash the most seductive looks his way until self control was entirely out of the question. That’s not even to mention her alluring auburn hair glowing in the dim light of evening, or the enchantment he felt when the shadow of her shapely feminine form cast its spell on the hillside strewn with wild flowers, hopelessly entangling his heart.

He’d been around. Some might even say, “A man of the world.” There had been many short term relationships in his jaded past, and he almost instinctively knew that he was probably not the first love in her life, but that didn’t matter. All that really mattered now was the moment. He must seize this moment, and cherish it forever. Over the fence he went to properly consummate the passion he felt in his heart.

It was the best thing that ever happened around here, that’s for sure. The female in this little story was a Hereford cow that belonged to our son TJ, and her impassioned lover was a Limousine bull that belonged to the neighbors. The ill-fated relationship didn’t last; they seldom do. They have a way of being short term by nature, but the product of that little tryst was a heifer calf that grew into the best cow we’ve ever owned. In fact I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say she was the best cow in the State.

Now, I’m sure I’ve got ever’ cowman for 500 miles in every direction mad as the dickens and just itchin’ to prove that they’ve got the best one, so I’d better explain a few of the reasons I believe she qualifies for that designation and then let everyone make up their own minds.

We called her TJ… much to our son’s dismay. Just imagine the humiliation of a young fella in puberty when his friends discover he has a cow named after him. Well, it WAS TJ’s cow and she carried his initials on the brand on her hip, so the name stuck. When he left home to strike out on his own, we somehow traded him out of her. What ever it was that we wound up giving him for her, it probably wasn’t enough. (I sure hope he doesn’t read this.)

She was marked like a red-necked Hereford and weighed in at over fifteen hundred pounds when she matured. The Limousine blood in her veins certainly didn’t hurt her milk production, that’s for sure. She was the best doggone milker on the place.

The first couple of years TJ was in production were fairly normal. She was just a regular part of the herd around here, and as a young cow, brought in a couple of nice big calves. It was the year she was four years old that she really began to prove her worth.

I don’t know how other cow outfits work, but around here if there’s an orphan calf or one that needs a little extra attention, the cook is the one that takes care of it. I like to think that because of her natural maternal instincts, she’s just more suited for that kind of thing. She’s certainly got more patience with a dummy that’s too sick or dumb to suck than I do that’s for sure, but if the truth were known, I don’t think she’d let me do it anyway. In her opinion, I’d more than likely just screw things up.

The spring TJ was four years old, we had a bum calf that needed a Mom for some reason, and because we didn’t have an extra cow, I went to the pasture and just picked up the cow with the most milk. That‘d be TJ. She was a joy to work with, and wound up raising both calves.

That was the beginning of a long and profitable relationship. As a matter fact, she was so easy to put extra calves on that it became a regular practice around here to pull calves from old or sick cows and just give them to TJ in the spring. There was only one more year (the summer that she was 17 and was so old that we felt sorry for her) that she only raised her own calf. She always had at least two and many times three or four.

She did have one itty-bitty strange quirk. My tiny little cook could go out into a pasture and put her hand on the old girl’s hip and she’d stand perfectly still for a little orphan to nurse, but she didn’t like getting milked. That was a no-no.

“Yea, right,” says I, the undaunted hero of ranch womanhood. “You mean to tell me you can’t get me a bottle of milk from that gentle old cow?”

“Nope, she doesn’t like to be milked. She kicks like a Government mule.”

Not being one to take no for an answer, I proceeded to show the little woman the proper method and technique for milking a gentle nurse cow. I hate to admit it, but she DIDN’T like to be milked. She stood about fifteen hands high, and calmly placed one of her five foot long hind legs up by her ear and then let it fly in the opposite direction, sending me across the calvin’ shed on my keester. She had a real Jekyll & Hyde personality, that cow.

TJ’s crowning accomplishment came the summer she was 18 years old. For some reason we wound up with more than our normal run of bum calves and she miraculously acquired three additional ones as well as her own. It was supposed to be a temporary situation, but that’s not how things worked out. She nursed all four of them that summer with no extra feed at all.

Our steer calves weighed about 650 pounds that fall and three of her calves fit right into the bunch with the little one that didn’t make the cut weighing about 500 or so. I sure wish I’d have gotten a picture of that.

If her record doesn’t qualify her for The World’s Most Profitable Cow Award, then I don’t know what it would take. Please consider these facts:

She had a calf every spring for seventeen consecutive years.

She raised more than one calf every year for fourteen of those years.

It’s our best estimation that she weaned at least 40 head of calves. With a conservative weaning weight of 550 pounds, that places her production at approximately 22,000 pounds of beef at weaning time.

She finally turned twenty one spring, and I guess all good things must end. The old girl ran into a few problems and her baby didn’t make it full term. We turned her out by herself and we reluctantly rounded her up and hauled her into the sale barn in August. It was like losing a member of the family. But even in her departure she made us proud. Twenty years old, she weighed 1450 pounds and grossed $754.

Not a bad end for the illegitimate by-product of an illicit relationship. Who said that foolin’ around doesn’t pay?

Keep Smilin’….and don’t forget to check yer cinch.

Ken Overcast is a recording cowboy singer that ranches on Lodge Creek in North Central Montana where he raises and dispenses B.S. http://www.kenovercast.com.