Posey’s job description is “nurse cow.” Nurse cows, ideally, will take any calf offered to them without much of a fight, but Posey isn’t most cows. And frankly, that’s pretty idealistic – Most cows are maternal enough that they really do only want their own calf, and aren’t happy with freeloaders, but Posey, Posey, Posey, it’s your job.

My father-in-law insists cows recognize their calves by smell, and the science behind grafting a bum calf on a cow that lost her calf is that after a few days of nursing her milk, the calf will smell like her own. The same principle should apply to Posey, but I pointed out to my father-in-law that it couldn’t be this cut and dry. Posey, last summer, would only ever let her adopted calf nurse if her own calf was nursing, so clearly there was some recognition there that went beyond smell. And this year, with two extra babies on her, she always knows which calf is Marigold. Marigold gets extra loving and grooming that the other two never get, and even though Posey has settled down and is content with all three, the two grafts never get the extra attention. Pretty fascinating.

However, even with the lack of maternal affection, the char and the black are doing well. It took a couple weeks of persistence, of separating all three calves from Posey and letting them nurse as a group twice a day and supervising Posey while she fed them, for things to settle into a routine, but it worked, and all parties are thriving and enjoying pasture freedom. The little black angus calf always nurses off the back, which are the largest quarters, and she is stout!

But it sure is satisfying to sit and watch those little tails whip back and forth.