Adventures in Cowboying

It seems that every day is eventful with calving in full swing and field work beginning.  One day we found two live calves, one dead and partially eaten by coyotes, and two cows that had calved.  The cows were confused, the calves were confused, and we were confused.  Did one cow lose her calf and claim a twin of the others?  Did one cow have twins and one lived and one didn't?  Since they can't tell us, I guess we will never know.  We got the four of them into the corral to try to sort it out and get them tagged.  One cow and calf seemed to be more bonded so we separated them from the more confused calf and left the confused one and it's "mother" in a pen alone.  All seems to be well now but we'll keep them separated for awhile to avoid more confusion.

We had a cow whose calf was born with the sac over it's nose, and we didn't find it in time to save it; however, even though it was about normal size there were some deformities that made us think it may have been a bit premature.  She was desperate for a calf so we had a friend who works at the sales barn in Glasgow purchase one for us--a big boy!  They seemed to bond fairly well, but we noticed that she was kicking at it when he tried to nurse so into the maternity pen she went so he could nurse her.  It only took one time of that and they seem to be getting along well now.  When he wasn't having luck with a teat he started sucking on her ear as she was eating.  He wasn't giving up!

We have four pairs out roaming.  They are older cows that we don't want to move too far to pasture.  Yesterday morning as we went to do chores we noticed there were more than four cows out and about.  Oops, someone inadvertently left a gate open the night before.  Not naming names, but I believe M was the last one through it.  So, we had to round them all up and get them back in and then sort the old ones back out.  The sorting back out wasn't a problem--those old cows are pretty smart.

When we finished with that we checked the heifers and found a tiny calf, estimated at about 37 pounds.  She's fully formed and alive so we're doing our best to save her.  We gave her a bottle of colostrum right away.  Then in the evening we got the cow in to try to milk her.  She didn't like that very well.  There was a lot of kicking and cursing (kicking from the cow, cursing from M) until M tied up her hind leg.  She didn't like that too well either.  I fed the baby with it, but we're not sure we want to go through that every day.  For starters, M doesn't have the time.  She is standing and walking a little bit, but we don't think she's tried to nurse the cow.  M says I should name her because I may be spending a lot of time with her, bottle feeding her two to three times a day.  I'm thinking Tink--short for Tinkerbell.  I'll have to ask R since it belongs to him.

M and Tink--she looks more like a puppy!

I had to run some sandwiches to J and Jared who were seeding and stopped on my way back to see how the baby was and check on the heifers.  As I walked through the pen I didn't find 011 who we thought was close to calving so I looked in the back shed and there she was, obviously laboring, with feet out.  I locked her in and called M who was cleaning grain to take to J.  He was almost done with that so came up and we got her in and pulled the calf which was probably 85 pounds.  It's probably a good thing that it didn't take any longer for him to get there.  I told R he is lucky he has such good help to take care of his cows!

This morning was pretty uneventful on the cow front.  Only two calves to tag and turn out, but we had a lot of running around to do to make sure J had seed and fuel and C had fuel and water to spray.  Poor M is getting run ragged, and it's only just begun.  Last year that was R.  He's a lot younger and even he was exhausted!