This photo of Dixie, a second calf heifer, was taken in March of 2012. She’s just weaned her first calf, and is pregnant with her second. From a nutritional perspective, this cow is coming into the most physically demanding time of her life. At three-years-old, she’s still growing, she’s pregnant, it’s cold, (she’s using extra calories to keep warm), and she’s only eating hay. Physically demanding? She looks like she needs to go to the gym. If you fed her grain, she’d explode.
This poor thing, on the other hand, is coming off winter looking pretty rough. She’s going to have a hard time raising a decent calf. Would someone please give this girl a Twinkie? And no. She is not our cow.