The Red Poll Girls

Before we got our first snow, I returned the cows to the north field. Two weeks later, I led them back across the road to the south field. That's were they'll spend the winter:

Poor Jasmine. The day after her cracked and infected rear hoof was worked on, I discovered bad cracks in two front hooves. She stopped eating and I feared she would die:

But I bought some expensive grain, so saturated with molasses that she ate it, and began feeding her a big bowl full (with extra minerals sprinkled on top) every morning. She's still not recovered, but has been looking much better:

And then the snows began. The cattle clustered around the bale feeder most of each day:

Jasmine didn't come to the barn for grain, so I began carrying her bowl out to her at the bale feeder:

I fed as many cows inside the barn as would enter it. The rest got fed just outside the door while I fed Jasmine, farther out in the field. I had to stand guard, though, lest the other cows take Jasmine's food when they arrived:

"Hey, why does Jasmine get the good stuff?"

It has become a daily ritual, and I slog out through the snow and mud each morning to check on her and make sure she eats a big bowl of nutritious grain:

The cows don't seem to mind the cold, snow or rain at all. It's difficult for me to understand, being a hairless ape whose ancestors evolved on the hot African plains:

I will keep a mineral salt block and granular free choice minerals for the cattle all winter. Selenium deficiency is common around here and I think that was the cause of one calf's death as well as Jasmine's hoof problems: