Calf Number Three

Next adventure started Tuesday morning.

(Just a picture of a couple of the heifers)

We could tell that there were several very close but one that was fairly imminent. Matt wanted to get her separated first thing so there wouldn't be any calf stealing going on =) He got her in the barn but we could tell she didn't really want to be there. This mama was one that Matt had pegged as a little bit stand-offish =) So she was in the barn and safe and the others were looking fine. We really wanted to get a replacement calf put on the mama that lost hers. Matt went up to a livestock sale to get a calf and left me in charge. Oh boy. Around noon I needed to take Lillie to school. When I got home I noticed that there was a heifer in the pen where the bull is kept. I first thought that one had escaped from the barn but I didn't see any hole in the walls or anywhere that she would have gotten out. But when I went to the barn, the mama in labor had sure enough broke through a poorly hung door. The door had just kind of swung back in place though so I couldn't tell from outside that she had gotten through it. So I opened it back up and tried to corral her into the open door. Well, she was having none of it and it is extremely difficult to get a cow to go where you want it to by yourself, when that place you want it to go, it does NOT want to go to. So I was running all around in the MUDDY mucky pen trying to get it in the barn. I was wearing Matt's mud boots because I had yet to get myself some. They were a mile too big and one got sucked off in the mud and I ended up running around in the muck with my sock on! Lovely.

(This is a picture of the Bull and of course Matt in the background)

She never did go in the barn for me so I didn't want to leave her with the bull so I opened the gate for her to go back in with the other heifers. Well miss heifer #86 (they have ear tags) decided to chase this heifer in labor all around and push her and shove her into the corner and everywhere else. For some reason she was not being nice. And I knew that wouldn't be good for her to have her calf with that #86 bothering and pestering her. So once again, I am out there trying to get a cow to go somewhere she doesn't want to go. All the other heifers (6 of them) would follow me into the other pen. But the one in labor and the one bothering her were being very stubborn. I finally got #86 away from her and tried steering her into the other pen. I would jump this way and that way trying to keep her going where I wanted. I'm sure if someone had been watching they would have thought I looked ridiculous! But eventually she got back around me. I was ready to give up and at least get the other 6 away from the one in labor when #86 decided to follow along with the crowd and I got all 7 of them penned up away from the mama in labor. Then finally Matt got home and through a series of events, we both eventually got her back into the barn because she seemed to be having trouble pushing this baby out. So Matt and I got her in the head gate so she couldn't escape and we helped her get her baby out. This time it was much harder getting that baby out than the other one Matt helped out. We had to tie something to the calf's legs that were out and then PULL! It was pretty neat being there helping pull a calf. And that one figured out how to nurse very quickly! A big blessing! And again a big calf weighing in at 90 pounds!

But as I said, Matt went to get a replacement calf, but came home empty handed. So now today, Wednesday he will go pick one up from a dairy that saw our "Replacement Calf Wanted" ad on craigslist. It was born the same day as the one we lost, so hopefully not too much time has passed to get it bonded with the heifer that lost her calf. I'm sure it will be another adventure.

(This is the heifer that lost her baby.)

And of course, today again I am in charge of watching the heifers and if one seems to be about ready to push a calf out, I have to get the others out of the pen so they won't bother her. Next time when they all calf, they should be able to go out the pasture and without any assistance from us, have their calves just fine. But since this is all their first calves, we felt it best to have them all up here in the pens close by. Hopefully today goes well and none of them will need assistance!

Calf Number two

To pick up the story from Saturday afternoon.... That evening at 11:00 we had another heifer have her calf. A little heifer calf. This time Matt had been home and was watching her and knew it was coming. He didn't want to take any chances so he helped the calf out by just pulling on the legs as the mama had the contractions. Calves are supposed to be born with born front legs out first. So far, that has been the case with ours. So that calf was born healthy but then the heifer that lost her calf tried to come and claim this calf as her own. So the real mama and her were pushing and shoving each other around and kind of knocking the calf over to try and claim it as their own. Eventually Matt got the mama who lost her calf away from the newest calf. He put the newest calf and its mama into the barn so they would have their own space. But the calf didn't seem to be able to nurse right away, or the mama wouldn't let it or something. Maybe because there was so much commotion when it was born. So Matt had to use the drencher to feel it the first colostrum and then he had to feed it a couple more times. He tried to work with it to get it sucking on the mama but it wasn't going well. He was up most of that night.
Then Monday morning he went out there and there it was just sucking away from the mama! We were very thankful for that! So they are doing really well now and are out of the barn in a pen by themselves. We didn't want the very first heifer, who lost her calf, to cause any more problems. Matt weighed this calf and it also weighed 85 pounds!

Ramblings on Our Newest Adventure

This was written Saturday late afternoon or evening: (And there will be more updates coming soon) Sorry this is so much rambling. I wasn't sure if I would even post it but hey, this is a blog about our life and farm and this is what is going on right now=)

We have 9 first calf heifers that are all supposed to be having calves any day now. A heifer is a girl "cow" that has not ever had a calf. A first calf heifer is, a girl cow that is pregnant with her first calf. Make sense? Okay, good =) Anyway, you have to watch first calf heifers more closely than seasoned mama cows who have had several, because their deliveries may be more difficult with things not ever having been stretched out like that before. They should be bred to a bull that should produce low birth weight calves, to help make calving their first easier. So we have nine of these lovely ladies that we have been watching for the past several weeks, just waiting to see any signs that their labor is imminent. In fact, this past week, I have gone nowhere except taking Lillie to school and going to church on Wednesday evening. (Though not necessarily because of the cows-anyone noticed gas prices lately?) And Lillie has been asking me, "Why do you always have to check on the cows?" Because I am constantly going out there. I would really like to be out there for the delivery! One of them has seemed to be ready to have her calf for the past week or even two weeks. But she just kept taking her merry time. So, from Monday-Friday this week I have been out there watching them and Matt even gets up during the night to go check on them. And today, seeing no more progress this morning we thought we were in the clear for awhile, I took the kids to eat lunch at d'Veers and then we headed to my little brothers' basketball game. We were gone 3 hours. Three hours. That's it. And wouldn't you know, in that 3 hour time span, the heifer that we have been watching the closest, had her calf. I knew almost right away when I drove in the driveway. I could see some white stuff out in their pen and I was sure I had never noticed anything white in the hay pile before. So I carried each of the boys up to their beds, because they fell asleep on the way home from the ball game. Then I rushed out there to see a newborn calf, seemingly just born, lying behind its mother. The calf didn't really look like he was breathing well or even much at all, so I stirred the mom enough to get her to get up and start licking the calf. And I could see that the birth sac was still over the calf's face so I got that off of it so it would not suffocate (although, it may have already done too much damage because I don't know how long the calf and mama had been lying there before I got home). But it still didn't look quite right to me, how little he was moving and breathing. I called the vet and they said give it about 30 minutes to let the cow and calf bond and see if anything is happening then call back if I needed to. In that time, I realized that the calf had not been breathing and was most certainly not going to make it. I got Matt's sister on the phone to go get him from their house where he was working on his new pickup (no cell phone reception and he couldn't hear the house phone). When he got home, I was so upset that we had lost our calf and especially that I hadn't been home to help it but he wanted to go out there to it right away. We got out there and he rubbed his finger in the calf's nose and pushed around on him a little to try and get it to start sniffing and breathing some. And it seemed to work! The calf was miraculously breathing again. And it even was softly mooing to his mama and the mama would answer him back. We were very excited. But then he just would not get up or even lift his head up. We called a friend who has done this kind of thing much longer than we have to come help us. We tried to force feed it but it did not work and the poor little calf ended up not making it. I am sad for it's mama too. We are all so sad around here this evening. Lillie and Titus were so excited about the newborn calf and they got to see it but then were so confused why it had to die. We didn't have much to tell them. But we do have some speculations. We think that the mama just had too hard of a time pushing the baby out. Remember at the beginning I said that a heifer's first calf should have a low birth weight. That means around 50 pounds. Well, we weighed this little guy and he weighed 85 pounds!! So we are assuming that this particular mama cow was a week or two past her due date and the calf just got too big. And since we weren't home watching, we didn't know that she was having trouble. If they take too long once they are in active labor, the chances of survival for the calf are very low. But all the signs were there a couple of weeks ago for her to be having the calf and it just didn't progress far enough. And this was our first calf as well. Since this is the first time we have ever had a "herd", we are definitely still learning. And sad that we lost our first one. We are hoping and praying the other mamas will have an easier go of it. And we will be watching much closer from now on.