We had our first calf born on Friday! This cow actually wasn’t due until 1/22, based on her artificial insemination breeding date, but the calf is happy, so we’re not complaining!
I could swear that I blogged about doing AI on 15 cows at midnight once, but I can’t find that post for the life of me. I’ll just have to try again this year.
Anyway. New babies! We leave our Angus cows to have their babies (calve) outside in their pasture, as long as their are no problems. Once the calves are born, we bring them inside for a few days, especially when it’s cold and rainy. The newborn kiddos (and their moms) appreciate the clean, dry barn.
While John was setting up the gates so we could move the momma cow, I set up their new bed. If there’s one farm chore I know how to do, it’s make fluffy beds for babies!
Um, that’s animal babies. Specifically, large animal babies. You know, like horse and cow babies.
Right.
So, we got our scale set up to weigh the little rug rat (and tested it out on John).
We checked to see if baby is a boy or a girl (girl, heifer), and to make sure her umbilicus (belly button) looked good (it did), and we weighed the monster (60 pounds). Then she got ear tags before we gave her back to momma.
Feisty little thing! She threw me to the ground at one point! I am out of practice wrestling with 60 pound calves. But we like them feisty – means they’re healthy!
And I’ll have a lot of practice… we had our second calf on Saturday (61 pound heifer), have four more due on 1/22, and 3 more about a month later!
Babies are way fun and super cute. Animal babies. Cow babies. Adorable.
