David adopts a cow

Last update on 20th January 2006 by Robert

In August 2005, Opa and Oma gave David a cow for his birthday. Well, an adopted cow, one that stays on the farm but you get to visit it a few times a year. This was organized by Stichting Adopteer Een Koe .

At first he couldn't go to see his cow because it was still grazing outside. By the time the cows finally came in (later than usual due to the fine weather), David had his scouts ceremony and we went off to England for Christmas. On 31st December the farmer sent us an email explaining that they were selling most of their cows and stopping with the adopt-a-cow program. Stichting Adopteer een Koe (which had changed into Stichting Miliebewustzijn) would look out for a different cow. Half a year after David had been given his adopted cow, he had not yet seen it and the outlook was bleak.

Then some good news. On January 3rd, Janti Riedeman from Schapenhouderij Rob Adriaans sent us a personal email to say they were keeping a few calves, mostly hand reared, and would David like to adopt one of these? On Saturday 14th January we visited the farm during one of their "Lammetjes Kijkdagen" (lamb viewing days). We talked to Janti, who turned out to be a very kind and helpful person, and arranged to come on 20th January to choose a calf. She explained the (very generous) terms of the adoption and gave us some background on the decline of interest in adopting cows - first started after the foot & mouth outbreak in April 2001.

[picture] So on Friday morning, January 20th 2006, David went to the farm to look at the calves. It started with a nice surprise: a calf had been born just a few days earlier! Its mother wasn't producing milk, so the calf had to be hand reared. David was allowed to feed the calf a bottle of milk. It was such a cute calf that David decided to adopt it, even though it had already been named (Loesje) during a birthday party on the day of its birth.

Loesje is a Zebu (or Zeboe) cow. You can see some pictures of Zebus on the Karolientjeshoeve website. Rob and Janti also have several "Belgish Blauwe" calves, two of which David is also very fond of. Then there are two "Lakenvelder" cows, a famous Dutch race with a characteristic vertical stripe, and they have several Scottish Highland cows - a bit like this cuddly toy.
[picture]

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