Musical Mamas

Ranch life never ceases to be interesting. We had nasty weather with wind and snow one day so had to put a couple of calves in the warmer and leave them in the barn for awhile.  They were both fine after getting warmed up.

Thursday night R took his girlfriend out to supper so we were in charge of Kade and of watching the cameras.  We noticed a heifer that was acting funny so we kept an eye on her.  About the time M was heading to bed I noticed that she was lying down and pushing.  R was on his way home so he checked on her and put her in a pen.  There was no water bag or feet yet.  I went to bed but woke up a couple of hours later and checked the camera.  Still no feet visible.  R and I both thought it was odd so I woke M up and we headed over to the barn thinking that the calf might be backwards or some other weird thing was happening.  By the time we got there R had her in the maternity pen and was hooking up the chains to pull the large calf.  It took the three of us to pull it.  Gotta love the bonding time at 3 am.

The next morning when M went to check, two heifers had calved side by side so he didn't know which calf was which.  One heifer was not playing nice and had pushed one of the calves under the fence and out of the corral.  It took him some time to figure out whose was whose and made one mama happy, but the other was a bit nasty.  She acted like she wanted the calf, but once it was with her she'd butt it all around the barn.  We had to separate them to keep the calf safe and hope that she'd settle down.  We mixed up a bottle of colostrum for it and fed it in case she didn't come to her senses.  In the midst of that M had to pull another calf.

One of my cows had lost her calf a few days before so we thought about giving her the new calf and not bothering with the crazy mama.  However, a trip out to check the cows changed our minds about that when we found our first set of twins of the season.  Sometimes a cow will only claim one of the twins and leave the other.  This cow seemed okay with it, but twins generally don't grow as well so we usually try to take one to another mother.  My cow is a nice, gentle thing and "too good to not have a calf" according to M.  He had been trying to convince me to buy one from a neighbor, but I was dragging my feet so we decided to give her one of the twins.

She wasn't resistant to the idea, but she also wasn't as receptive as we thought she might be.  We taped some of the hide from her dead calf to the new calf so that it would smell like hers.  Then we put her in the chute so that the calf could suck.  We've had to do that a couple of times.  She likes her ground feed so we bribe her with that while she's in the chute and the calf is eating.  M doesn't think it will take too long for her to come around.  I hope so....for the sake of the poor calf.

The crazy mama went into the chute so the calf could eat, and she finally came around a bit.  However, she will still push other calves around so she needs to be segregated somehow.

During the nasty weather we had a new calf die before we found it and could get it to the warmer.  The cow has been guarding the calf out in the pasture so we brought it in and got her to follow it to the barn where she'll get a new calf from a neighbor.  He owes us money so we're hoping it will be a freebie.  We'll see if he thinks the same thing.

It was a beautiful morning today and we had 11 new calves to tag.  Unfortunately, the forecast is calling for more wet snow for the next few days.  R is worried about filling up our pens with grafted calves and the crazy ones in case we need to get cold, wet calves to the barn.  I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  On the bright side, we're about half done calving!  Keep calm and carry on :)