Our Highland cow Greta was in with a bull until February of this year. So we do not know if she is pregnant and , if so, when she is due. So I have been periodically trying to check her udder to make sure it is not enlarging. It is challenging because she does not like people too close and will kick if you get near her butt. But today with a side view I noticed something off. On her right front seemingly normal teat she has this “growth?” coming from the front surface near the tip. I could not get close to look at it and certainly couldn’t get near enough to touch it so I decided to take zoom photos from about 10 feet away to see if I could see it better that way and figure out what it is. So the above photo is the best one of the bunch. The tip of the normal teat is in the upper left corner of the photo and the oddity is in the middle. So now I need some help to figure out what it is. Anyone have any ideas?
So our old white rooster died while I was at Black Sheep Gathering. It is the end of a chicken era here at Schoonover Farm. He was our head rooster for a number of year, since before Cogburn died. Now the red rooster is in charge. White rooster’s harem will likely be distributed between red rooster, “Little Man“, and the 2 Phoenix roosters.
I cleaned out a pen to get ready for chicks that are supposed to arrive on Monday. And then I decided to shear the old skinny sheep. My strategy with them is not to shear them with the rest of the flock in the Spring, wait for the weather to warm up, and then trim the felted wool off of them to allow cooling but keep some wool on them for the upcoming winter. I trimmed three of them today before my back told me to wait on the other two for another day. I did Sadie, Sheila and Bob. Sadie and Sheila are blind and relatively easy to catch and get on the shearing stand. Bob, however, is still quite feisty and was a chore to get into the stanchion. Below are Sadie and Bob after the event. Hopefully they will be cooler now.
I think that would be a ‘banana teat’. In the confirmation descriptions of Highland cattle, long teats like this are mentioned as a defect, or at least, a defect in the breeding herd. For meat animals, they are ok. Apparently they are more difficult to nurse from. There wasn’t much on whether or not one of these, and one normal would significantly affect the calf – bit I wonder if she might need supplementary milking on that side if the calf isn’t able to get enough of the milk out over time to avoid mastitis. Oh joy. I hope I’m wrong :/
Thanks for your comment! I will have to look up “banana teat”. I definitely think it is going to be close to impossible for a calf to nurse from this. Thankfully the other teats appear normal as far as I can tell. Mastitis is a definitely concern as well as heritability. I can only hope she is not pregnant, but that ship may have sailed.