Diary of a Dairy Farmer
by Rajini N. and Devarani B.
Having spent six years doing dairy farming, I have developed so much of love and attachment towards the cattle that one day, when I was going to our fields to get fodder for cattle, I saw a few men taking a young, weak cow to a slaughterhouse as she failed to yield any calves. Thinking that she became totally infertile, they wanted to dispose her off to butchers, who offered Rs. 12000 for the cow. I was moved by the incident. There was something special about the cow and I felt that she would have bred a calf if she was at my farm. So I immediately paid them Rs. 13000 and brought her home. When I got her to the farm, she didn’t allow me near her. She was very frightened and I thought she might need a day or two to get used to the new place. So I didn’t bother her much and fed her regularly. After the third day, she started allowing me near her, I would gently stroke her below the neck. Sometimes I used to talk to her and treated her with all affection. This made her feel good and in a few days she regained some weight and began to respond favourably. She would come near me and would ask me to pat her. This way regular feed, gentle handling and some interactions with her helped in developing a relationship with her. Soon, in about three months, she conceived and later she bred a female calf. She also gives a considerable amount of milk regularly. Now, she has conceived again and I see it as a reward for the way I treat her. Cows are very intelligent beings. They know who cares about them, who don’t. They have a deep bonding with the person who takes care of them. They would remind me if I forget to attend to their needs. Sometimes they wouldn’t let me tie them, so I leave them free in the farm for some time and if I am busy with some work, they would go to other’s farm for grass, then I had to run to bring them back. Some do this quite often to get my attention. Sometimes they can even be moody and wouldn’t respond even when I talk or pat them.
For breeding, we used to take them to a veterinarian to give them injections. Sometimes, the injections don’t work and I was forced to take the cows to the clinic for more injections. At times, I had to wait for the doctor a long time as he was busy elsewhere. I didn’t like to rely much on injections for breeding purpose. So I bought two bulls for natural breeding purpose even though it would require more effort and feed. Since the bulls were young when I bought them, it was easier for me to handle them. Fortunately, my efforts and investment didn’t go waste. These bulls gave us calves that are quite fit and healthy and soon our cattle wealth improved. All the calves that we have now are naturally bred and people in and around our village bring their cows to our bulls for natural breeding, which gave better results than artificial insemination.
We have eight calves on the farm now. Whenever I see those young calves, I am rather much attracted by their pretty appearance with big eyes, beautiful physiques and the way they jump and run around. I pat them on their backs and play with them for some time. Also, I have developed the habit of telling ’good morning’ to each one of them. They respond positively to my morning wishes and only then I start milking. Whenever I feel down, I spend a little extra time with them and that improves my mood. They are even friends with our pet dog, who guards the farm. Of the eight calves that we have now, five of them are female and three are male. Fortunately, we have more female calves than male. I have developed a sentimental attachment with these calves, but I am very much aware of the fact that the male ones have to leave someday in order to sustain the farm and are raised to get killed. Sometimes I make conscious efforts to not get emotionally attached to the male calves knowing that they will be gone in a few months and limit my care to providing them feed, water and shelter. However, sometimes I don’t see a difference between the male and female calves and treat them equally. I make sure to take good care of them and feed them properly when they are on our farm. It was very upsetting the first time I had to sell a male calf I reared for seven months. Though it would reduce the amount of work at the farm and would save some feed, he was there with us on the farm right from the moment he was born, so it was hard to see someone taking him away. Some calves don’t know where they are going, while some can judge that something is wrong and would hesitate to go with a stranger. The cows would look for their calves for two or three days and would become stressed and dull. Some cows do not bother much. Every time we sell a calf, it upsets me for three to four days, but my busy routine helps me get over it eventually. I wish our cows could give birth only to female calves so that I don’t have to go through this every time we sell a male calf to a butcher.
The most upsetting thing that can happen in dairy farming is when some cow or calf or bull falls sick. This happens more during summer. The hot weather of summer always leaves me a great worry as to what might happen to our cows. Last summer, a cow lost her life on the farm. I usually take the cattle out from the shed and peg them under the trees at about eleven in the morning every day during summer and all the cattle wait for that time to go sit under the shade of the trees. They knew well about that timely action and their favourite activity is to go sit under the trees and ruminate. One day it so happened that a cow hardly moved from the shed to go under the trees. She seemed to have lost her sparkle and I could see straight away that she became sick. Immediately I made a phone call to the veterinarian. But that day, he couldn’t come. He told me that he would come the next day and in the meantime, advised me to keep the cow in some cool and shady area. I did the same, arranged a fan for the sick cow and wiped her body with a wet cloth. Next day, the doctor came, gave her injections and some medicines. I thought she would recover soon as the doctor had given some medicines, but the cow still continued to be dull and wasn’t able to eat anything. She was well fed, all healthy and gave a good amount of milk too. To see her suddenly lose all the energy and become sick, I didn’t understand what was happening to her. There were times when the cows were dull during the summer, but this was different and I was scared that I might lose her. I would keep fodder and water for other cattle, finish some work at the farm and would go back to the shed to check her every now and then. The first two days after she fell sick were tough, later I got used to seeing her like that. But I hoped that she would recover. Three days passed and on the fourth day, I found the cow to be dead when I went to check her in the morning. It was the first time for me to see a cow’s death on our farm. To see her lying motionless on the floor, I didn’t know what to do. I felt so sorry for her painful death having developed attachment for her for several years and the thought that there will be lesser milk from then on the farm didn’t strike me at that moment. I was upset for a few days and though others commented that it is her fate to die soon, somehow I couldn’t reconcile myself with that incident and summer still scares me.
Initially when there were only four cows, I used to hand milk each cow twice a day. But when the number of cows increased, I found it difficult to hand milk them, as it was straining my muscles. I heard about milking machine but I wasn’t sure if I should get it because nobody in our village back then had it and most of the villagers warned me not to go in for the machine as it might cause some problem for the cows but our veterinary doctor assured that no such harm would occur. So I bought a machine with a subsidy offered by the government. Though the cows felt a bit inconvenient to get milked by the machine in the beginning, they would move away or felt uneasy, but soon they got used to it. I usually milk them twice a day. It starts with cleaning their udders and I leave the calves first to their mothers to suckle some milk. The calves would run to their mothers as soon as I untie them and even if there are hundred other cows, the calf would know which one is his/her mother. After a minute or two, I pull and tie them near the cows. Then the machine is attached to the cow’s udder and within 3–4 mins, the machine draws the milk. The cows lick their calves and play with them while they are being milked. I detach the machine when there’s still some milk left and hand milk it separately. I take one or two litres of this milk for our family as it contains more fat. So this way I combine both traditional and modern dairy practices and dairy farming has become a way of life for me, having developed a deep bonding with cattle.
This piece of writing, which focusses on the human-cattle relationships on a small dairy farm was originally written in Telugu to theorise the perspectives of a dairy farmer and their care practices on a farm.
Diary of a Farmer
by Eshwara Reddy P. and Devarani B.
I have lived with cows all my life. We are used to having fresh fat milk and never had the habit of buying it. So we had at least one cow in the backyard for household dairy. Since we live in a village, we never had to buy fodder for our cattle and we had enough space to raise them. We rear cows depending on the availability of fodder in our field. If there’s good amount of fodder, we rear 4–5 cows. If there’s no fodder at all, we sell all the cows and buy them once we have enough to feed them. Since we always had them around us, it’s tough to imagine our lives and our house without them. We never reared them for commercial dairying. Though we buy and sell them for dairy and economic reasons, we treat them like they are a part of our family.
I am very careful when it comes to buying a cow for our family. When I go to buy a cow, I look for the one that looks healthy, immune to diseases and can take the summer heat. Otherwise they cannot survive in the extreme weather conditions and it’s heartbreaking to see them suffer. I prefer buying the one that is resistant to diseases to the one that gives more milk. Now we have a jersey cow and her calf. She produces 6–8 litres of milk daily depending on the type and amount of feed we give her. We keep 1–2 litres from it for our family and sell the rest at a milk depot.
Earlier we had bulls in our village and we used them for ploughing and breeding. Now there is hardly any bull in and around our village. It is also economically not possible to keep a bull and they cannot be handled easily unlike cows. So we depend on artificial insemination to breed our cows. Sometimes we take them to a veterinary hospital in our village depending on the availability of the veterinarian. Sometimes we call a technician, who comes home to artificially inseminate our cows. At times, the injections don’t work, so we try to get them more. If it fails even after 8–10 trails, we sell them in the market. However selling them is not easy too. The rate for the cow in the market depends on the amount of milk she is giving, her fitness and health. Even if we have an infertile cow, we make sure to feed her properly and sell her only when she is healthy. It is economically beneficial to us and as well as for the cow to keep her healthy. However, there were times when we chose not to sell our cows, as they were very close to us and also we had enough fodder to feed them even though if they weren’t producing any milk. So selling them to a butcher depends mostly on the availability of the feed and sometimes on the productivity, so that we don’t run into economic loss.
We had utmost five cows with us. Our day starts with getting ready and milking the cows. My mother and I milk the cows in the morning if there are more than two cows. Now that we have only one with us, I milk the cow in the morning. It usually takes about 10–15 minutes to milk her. We leave the calf first to suckle some milk, then we tie her near the cow and milk her. In the end, we leave the calf to take the rest. Milking can be an enjoyable experience for cows and they need to be milked everyday. Milking reduces the stress on their udders. Sometimes if we are busy and cannot milk the cow, we leave the calf to do the job for us.
I take the cattle to our field at around ten in the morning for grazing. Since there is only one cow now, she has all the fodder that she needs. She consumes more feed when I take her to the field. Walking to the field and grazing in the pasture keeps her active and she even produces more milk. Just like human beings, it is important for them to exercise their body to stay fit and healthy. This way, I spend one to two hours with the cow in a day.
I have two daughters. The younger one loves to spend time with the cows and treats them as pets. She even gives them names sometimes. Her favourite activity is to sit with the cows and milk them in the evening after she is back from school. The cows like her too. They lick and enjoy playing with her. Whenever she is at home, they know that she feeds them extra, so they keep mooing and wait for her to come and feed them. She doesn’t like to sell them to a butcher. We feel sad when we had to sell them, but under certain circumstances we have no choice but to sell them. Instead of keeping them with us and giving them insufficient food, we feel it is better for us and as well as for the cows to sell them in the market.
We have some chickens too in the backyard raised for eggs and meat. Unlike cows, we don’t have a close bonding with them. Also they are huge in number and never got any individual attention. But with cows, its different. They are a part of our family. Sometimes my mother sits with them and talks. My wife prays to them every Friday. I enjoy taking them out to our field. Since they weren’t too many cows with us at any given point of time, we see and treat them as individuals and they get the attention they need. However when the time comes, we sell them to a butcher and since we have been doing this for a very long time, we are less emotional about it now.
Inferences
The nature of a relationship that Rajini has with her cattle differs with each one of them. She develops a close relationship with cows and female calves as they stay on the farm for a longer period and provide milk. With the male calves, she is a bit detached and avoids developing any sentimental attachment towards them knowing that they have to be sold one day. However she makes sure that they are fed properly before they are sent to slaughterhouses, not just to get a better price, but also she felt that it is right to give them good care which includes providing food, water, shelter and letting them get milk from their mothers. The cattle in return developed a deep bonding with her, which helped in improving her mood and benefited her economically as well, like in the case where getting close to a cow, helped in improving the cow’s well-being and also made her productive. In the other case, Eshwara and his family are used to rearing cows so that they can have their own source of fresh milk and other dairy products. They are not into commercial dairying, hence selling milk every day is not their priority. Sometimes they would let the calf have it. While some are kept for commercial purposes and some for household dairy, in both the cases, the farmers have a close relationship with their cattle and that is seen as a good care practice. Good care is not limited to providing their cattle with food, shelter and treating them for diseases, but also includes close physical contact and attending to their needs. Farmers felt that it is important to give them a good environment to live and caring for them gave them a sense of fulfilment.
The task of milking a cow twice a day requires close physical contact and that is one of the ways a dairy farmer shows how they care for their cows by milking and reducing the stress on their udders. The cows spending time with the dairy farmers would understand this and reciprocate. This helped them to trust the farmers and develop a sense of bonding with them. Though the milking machine seems safer to the cows and does no physical harm, the amount of time that the dairy farmers and the cows spend with each other has considerably reduced and the close physical contact is lost too when milked by the machine. During milking, the cows lick and play with their calves and that is the only time they get to be with each other. However, with the machine, the cows don’t get to spend as much time as they used to spend with the calves when they were hand milked.
