Every season has its perks and it's downfalls, but calving time is definitely one of my most favourite times of the year!
Roughly 283 days before this day you turned your cows out with a bull or artificially inseminated them. You've fed them through the winter months. Watched their bellies grow and their bags fill. You don't worry about your old seasoned cows as much as you do the first time calvers, but you watch them all just the same. You take notice of when one's off by herself, if she's acting out of sorts, has any mucus, raised tail head and all that jazz. Finally the magic happens, usually at night, but sometimes you get those nice day time calvers and you get to watch that baby take its first breaths.
My daughter and I watched her cow give birth the other day. Her cow's an old seasoned pro as this is her 4th calf, but this was a new experience for my daughter. Of course her cow picked a day where it was raining intermittently and just happened to be pouring when her new little bull calf was born. He came sliding out of the birth canal like people slide in and out of your DM's and the rain quit. She had a fairly easy labour so she didn't lay like this long. Being the good mama she is she was up getting the sack off her baby and cleaning him up.
Within minutes this little guy was working on testing those wobbly legs. It's crazy when you think about it. Human babies take over a year to master what these little fellas master in a matter of minutes or hours! It took him about 15 minutes to finally get standing. Which is literally no time at all. My daughter and I watched as he took his first shaky steps. With every step he gained confidence and strength and it wasn't long before he was making laps around her looking for a snack.
Depending on the cow or the calf, sometimes you have to help baby and mama with that first feed. Not this guy though. Milo, which is what my daughter decided to name him, found that teat and was off to the races getting that ever important colostrum into his bod. His mama is built for having twins or triplets, but she insists on having only 1 roughly 65-70lb calf every year. She's got so much milk in her hind quarters that her bag has her tripping and stumbling as she tries to keep up with Milo and his crazy calf antics. Eventually those calves catch on that there's 4 places to find snacks and boy do they grow! She's raised some beautiful babies, 1 of which should be calving for the first time any day.
I'll keep you posted as calving progresses.
Until then get outside and enjoy the sunshine or whatever type of weather you're having!
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