A dairy near Vista, California sold several newborn calves to my neighbor. My neighbor nurse fed the calves until they were healthy and old enough to sell. I bought two of them to bring home to live on our recently purchased five acre ranch. My four children, age six, eight, ten and eleven would enjoy having pet calves, but it was my wife Barbara who really wanted to buy them. We named the black and white heifer Precious. The heavier stronger one was colored yellow so we named her Goldie.
At first Barbara fed the calves milk with a large nippled bottle. Later they learned to eat hay and grain. As they gained weight I practiced lifting them off the ground. I wanted to see how long I could keep lifting them. A few weeks after we purchased our calves we noticed our six year old daughter Jenny becoming closely attached to Precious. Early Sunday morning Barbara looked out our kitchen window to see Precious asleep lying on her side. Jenny wearing a flimsy nightgown was lying asleep on the grass with her head cradled on the animal's soft neck. Jenny was lectured that morning. We were upset thinking that she could have been kicked or crushed.
An egg ranch near our home caused many flies to visit our house. Sometimes I looked at the ceiling of our front porch. The white ceiling was black with flies. A year passed when we looked out our back door and watched Jenny standing next to Precious. Jenny had a fly swatter in her hand. She looked serious as she stood by the calf swatting away at the flies that had landed on the pet calf's body. My wife Barbara and I watched with parental love and interest in our daughter's concern for Precious. I was able to film the action with my home movie camera.
After having the animals a year they were too heavy for me to lift but big enough for my four grade school kids to attempt riding them. The two boys aged nine and eleven learned how to mount the calves the easy way. They put hay on the ground and when the calf put her head down to eat, either boy would throw his leg over the animal's head and cling to the neck. The calf lifted her head causing the boy to slide down head first to the heifer's back. The calves seldom bucked and it was easy for the boys to turn around and sit facing forward. The animals were tame and did not try to run away. In fact they mostly stood still until the child became bored and slid off to the ground.
We had the heifers for more than a year when the calves stood outside the wood two-rail fence forty yards from my house. I had rigged up a horse high-jump using a bamboo pole tied to a tree and a wood stand at the other end of the pole. I was busy teaching three of my horses to go in a circle to jump the bar. I held a whip and forced the horses to jump over the barrier. Each time a horse made the jump I gave it a reward from a small bucket. The reward was a hand-full of grain. After a while the heifer's got tired of watching us. They knelt down and crawled under the fence. Horses never crawl under fences, but apparently calves are smart like donkeys, so they learn to crawl without coaching. The calves got in line behind the horses and jumped right over the hurdle. They knew how to get the bonus of grain, and they interrupted my efforts to train the horses. The calves kept cutting in front of the horses. I tried to chase them away, but they wouldn't go.
Eventually the heifers grew to about seven hundred pounds. They learned to break out of our yard, and Barbara was forced to walk down our country road carrying halters and ropes. She was soon tired of chasing after them and tugging them back to our pasture. They were strong and too big for her to handle. One day Goldie tried to butt Barbara. Barbara got mad. She sold both heifers back to the dairy. They became mothers and finally milk cows.