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4 Down so far Today

randiliana

Well-known member
Well, I guess we are officially calving. Even though we had bulls out to start calving about the 25 of Feb, we had only 9 calves up until March 5. Seems the cows don't think we need to start before then. Not the first year we have tried moving them up, and had only a couple of calves before Mar 5.

This morning we had 4 calves. Starting with a bang!! Of course, it all wasn't that easy, it was -18 C out there this morning, which means we want the calves born inside if possible. Put 1 cow up last night, and brought 2 more up this morning before they calved. Another one I had to give a sleigh ride, to the top of the hill. I figured it was born about 5 am, and by 7 mama had her pretty much cleaned up but the calf still wasn't up and sucked. The tips of it's ears were a little stiff too. Who needs exercise classes, when you get to drag a chilled calf up a 1/4 mile hill on 1/2" of snow. Believe me, I was feeling the burn :lol: :lol: by the time I got that one to the barn. Plus I got to make 2 more trips up and down that hill to bring up the other 2 cows, who fortuneately were co-operative. I belive I got the reccomended amount of exercise today.

As for the lady we put up last night, she wasn't quite so co-operative. Took 2 of us to get her up, and I know 1 person would not have done it. Put her in the barn, and left her. Well, the pen she was in has an old boarded up door (no daylight showing) in it, and we have never had a problem with it, at least not till #83 :evil: :mad: :evil: decided that she could and would make it into a doorway again. Fortunately, she just got out into another pen, cause she would have been a real sweetheart to get in from out in the pasture again. Got her into a different pen, boarded the door up again, put 1 of the other cows in a pen, and then went down to bring the chilled calf up, her mama is a bit nicer mannered, and followed baby right into the same pen. She doesn't seem to think the barn needs another door either :shock: :shock: .

By this time I figure #83 is not progressing, and there is more of a problem than just the fact that she is inside. About this time hubby shows up to see why my 15 min check is taking 3/4 of an hour. So he has a discussion with #83 and finally convinces her to stick her head in the head gate, so we can check her out. Sure enough, it is a backwards calf. So we get the bucket of water, clean her up a bit, and get the chains on. Try pulling by hand, but things aren't happening very quickly, so put the puller on. Only needed it to get the hips out, and then it was faster to pull by hand than mess around with the puller. Got the calf out fine, a nice red baldy heifer calf. Go to let #83 out of the headgate (backwards) and she is MUCH more interested in having an up close and personal discussion :shock: :eek: :shock: with ME than backing up. Finally convinced her that, no she was not going to have ME for HER breakfast, and she decided she better get her calf going in a hurry. She will settle down once we get her out of the barn. Not a man killer, but she doesn't care to be handled much, and that is what had her going.

Got all the newbies kicked out too, before the sun went down, and managed to get the barn cleaned up. Me thinks, we may need the barn again tonight....... Only 130 more to go
 

WyomingRancher

Well-known member
Sounds like you had quite the workout and adventure! I'm glad to hear your backwards calf was okay, and that you didn't turn onto breakfast for #83 :lol:

Thanks for sharing your story.
 

randiliana

Well-known member
WyomingRancher said:
Sounds like you had quite the workout and adventure! I'm glad to hear your backwards calf was okay, and that you didn't turn onto breakfast for #83 :lol:

Thanks for sharing your story.

You are welcome. There is a bit of story about that cow. She is the first heifer we ever raised and kept. Goes back to one of the first cows we ever had. Since we only had a few calves around that year, we decided to halter break the prospective replacements. #83 has never taken well to being restrained. We did get the halter on her easy enough, and were even able to control her a bit once we let her out of the chute. But as soon as we tied her up she went on the fight, and not just a little temper tantrum either, but a full blown, snot slinging war. Had to crawl under the fence to get away from her (she weighed about 600lbs). Once we got away from her, she didn't really fight the rope much, but the look on her face as she watched us was unreal. I have never seen an animal with the same look before or since. There was :twisted: MURDER :twisted: in her eyes. I really wish I had a camera that day to take a picture, could have titled it "If Looks Could Kill" :shock: cause if they could have, we would have dropped where we stood. Course, that may not have worked too well for her, she was still tied up. It was even a bit of a challenge to get her untied, she spent the entire time we were trying to get ahold of the end of the rope, trying to come through the fence at us. We did get her loose, put her back down the chute, so we could safely remove the halter and put her back out in the pen with her other friends. That was the end of her halter breaking lesson, I think SHE won THAT arguement.

She is now 8 years old, had a calf every year, and has a heifer or two that are in the herd. She is not a bad cow, not mean at all, unless you try to restrain her. I can walk up to her calf out in the pasture without worrying too much.
 
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