The Herd -- Luna

In the hopes of giving readers a better feel for the Farm, I have started writing biographies of each cow. Actually, I am afraid I will forget this information if I don't write it down. The herd has grown recently and my memory is taxed to keep it all in my head.

The first one I choose was Luna. She was standing in the front, so I picked her. No favorites here. Born on January first of last year, she just passed the one year mark. We have been putting her in the paddock with Joe, the bull, but I am not sure that it has taken yet.

Luna is of course a female, born of her mother Dinah 2.0 and a bull whose presence was made in the form of a straw of frozen semen. Not sure that I even know his name, but I think it was Ayatollah. Yes, I too thought that was an odd name for a prize winning Jersey bull. This fine calf's name comes from the white marking on her head. Looks kind of like a moon. I go back and forth between thinking that her many white markings on her body make her distinctive and special, and preferring the solid, fawn colored hide of the other members of this fine herd.

With a bit of luck, Luna will be bred here in the next few weeks. The gestation period for cows is nine months and a few days and my goal is to have her calve for the first time on her second birthday. If I have done the math right, her conception day needs to be in the next few weeks.

Difficult to see in this photo, but Luna still has her horns. Although the popular misconception is that male cows have horns and females do not, actually they all are born with horns. The horns are burned off when they are a few weeks old to prevent myself from being gored from a head shaking cow. Luna's horns never really came in on schedule, however, and so I just left them there. They are still rather diminutive even after her twelve months of age. I expect that her horns will be left on her, giving her an unfair advantage over the other, less horned, members of this tribe.

Next cow up in the bovine trading card series: Boo.