The Cow With Two Tags
My herd records showed one cow giving four hundred gallons a day, until I found out two cows were sharing a number and a plan.
I keep good records. The software on the office computer tracks every cow's milk, weight and breeding date, and each Monday I sit down with a cup of coffee and a printout. It is the most peaceful hour of my week. Which is why I nearly dropped the cup in March when the report said that cow number 4004 had produced four hundred gallons in a single day.
I walked down to the parlor. Four hundred gallons is not a cow, it is a lake. I found 4004, a mild and ordinary Holstein with a drooping left ear, standing in her stall chewing like she had no idea. I checked the tag. It said 4004. I checked the tank. The tank said otherwise.
I called the dairy supply office, and a young man named Cody looked at my file over the phone. After a pause he said, 'Sir, you have two cows in the system with that number.' I said that was impossible. He said it happened more often than I would think. I went back out and began checking every tag in the lot, one cow at a time, with a clipboard.
The twin turned out to be a heifer on the far side of the pen who had come in through a sale two years earlier with the same number. Someone at the auction had printed a duplicate tag. The two cows, who looked nothing alike, had lived forty feet apart for eighteen months, and the computer had cheerfully added their milk together every day.
We fixed it with a new tag and an apology to the heifer. But the whole mix-up got me reading the weekly Dairy Market News reports with a fresh respect for anyone who has to count anything in this business. A man at the co-op said I should hang the first printout on the wall as the most productive cow in history. I did. It is beside the calendar, and I tell the story to every salesman who walks in, and to anyone who asks on farm.FM.