Category: Cows

This morning, Miguel and I moved Sprinkles and #72 out to the front pasture. They were happy to be outside, especially the calf. Betsy and Bernice came over and made friends immediately and everyone is out enjoying the beautiful day we have today. 83, sunny, and a nice breeze.

This was all possible because of the picture above. Lucy, who runs our store on Wednesdays and Fridays, and who works our garden every day of the week, got stuck with calf duty Thursday and Friday. I had to go to Virginia and had to leave the calf in somebody’s care. Who better than a mom? Did she have any experience with cows. Well no. How about calves? Um, once. Did I give her much instruction. Well no, not really. But she’s a mom, she’ll figure it out.

The results? Well, they speak for themselves. This calf would have died without help. She couldn’t stand without pain and she would have gotten weaker and weaker having not nursed. By the time she could stand, she would have been unable due to lack of nutrition and that would be that. So kuddos to Miguel for noticing her in the beginning. Kuddos to Lucy for keeping her fed.

I’m going to be taking a look at what is going on, but we lost a calf already recently, probably from the same problem, and we would have lost this calf. I think we have a genetic problem (from outside, of course) we’ll have to deal with shortly. But one thing at a time.

This morning the little calf didn’t look any better. She may have even been a little worse. She still has the weird thing where her ankles are weak and she wasn’t nursing. Miguel, Vicente and Michael went down this morning while I was off farm and brought the calf and momma back to the barn where we could work on them easier. We gave the calf about 20 minutes to see if she would nurse now that both mom and calf were in an enclosed stall with no distractions. Alas, no luck there so it was time for plan B.

Plan B started with a quick trip to the feed store to buy this.

I also needed a rope halter, which was actually why I went. But it couldn’t hurt to get some vitamins in the little girl. I shot this stuff in her mouth. Most of it went right back out and onto the ground but I’m sure some of it went in. I was supposed to wait 30 minutes to see if this stuff worked so while I waited I put fresh shavings in the stall for the cows and then put a fan in their stall to help with the heat and flies. I also sprayed them both down with fly spray. The more I could keep Sprinkles standing still, the more apt she would be to hang out and let the calf nurse.

After waiting 30 minutes to see if the calf would perk up from the magic elixir (she didn’t), I grabbed a rope halter and asked Adam to come and help. After a few false attempts, I finally got the rope halter on Sprinkles. Prior to this point I’d been feeding Sprinkles bananas one by one so she was looking at me like maybe I wasn’t so bad. When the halter went on, her opinion of me darkened considerably. But eventually we were able to get her head tied to a post in the stall and we were able to pin her against the wall. I then tied one of her back legs back so she couldn’t kick us (on purpose) or the calf (by accident) and then dragged the calf over to try and nurse.

The little calf was less than enthusiastic but after fighting her a bit I finally got her on the teet and she drank a bit of milk. Not much. After realizing that she’s done all she’s going to do, I put the calf back in the corner and proceeded to hand milk Sprinkles to get some colostrum in her via bottle feeding.

Since Sprinkles was conveniently tied bow and stern, I grabbed the pail I’d brought for just this purpose and proceeded to hand milk her to get some milk for the calf. She wasn’t too happy with me but she did her best to let me get away with it. We finally released Sprinkles and I filtered the milk, bottled it, and put it right into the calf. In total she’s probably had about a cup of colostrum. In addition she’s had about 1/2 gallon of Betsy milk.

I’ve talked to the vet and she has some ideas of what is going on. For now the best we can do is to get milk in her and give her some time. We’ll see how the rest of the feedings go today and tomorrow.

Yesterday we had a new calf born on the farm. Sprinkles had her little girl calf, #72. Miguel came and got me and said the calf looked weak and asked if I wanted to go look. I was neck deep in trying to talk to new farmers but critters come first. Fortunately I had a few minutes and Lucy was working the store so I didn’t have to worry about that. We went out to see the calf and she was laying down, and laying kinda oddly. After getting her up I noted that she was pretty wobbly and walking oddly on her hind legs. She also didn’t seem to be paying mom any mind. Nor was mom paying her any attention. We got the calf up and took her over to mom. Unfortunately she tried to nurse another mom beside Sprinkles and got kicked for her efforts and knocked to the ground. We separated Sprinkles and this calf to give them a chance to get some nursing going and neither had much interest in the other.

Sigh.

Ok, back to the barn to grab a gallon of pet milk out of the fridge. Miguel dug out the nursing bottle and Lucy and Ru jumped into action as well. I boiled some water, Lucy cleaned the bottle up and microwaved the milk to get it sorta warm. I grabbed the stainless bucket, took the now clean bottle and nipple from Lucy, added the warm milk, then filled the stainless bucket with hot water, and dropped the bottle of milk in the hot water. This takes the milk from sorta warm to momma cow hot without cooking the milk. (Thanks dad for teaching me this).

Lucy, Ru, and I went back out to the pasture to find #72 and spent the next 15 minutes looking for a calf that was laying right in front of us in a small patch of tall grass. Once we found the calf, I got her up, popped her head between my legs, and started trying to get her to figure out that drinking was a good idea. Sometimes this takes hours, sometimes days. All the calf knows is some monster has her head in a vice and is shoving things in her mouth. All she wants to do is get away, not take a drink. With this little girl, it took about three minutes.

After a bit of wrangling and fighting, she finally took a drink. After the first pull, she had the idea and went to town. After about 5 minutes of drinking, she’d unfortunately only gotten a little bit of the milk. That was when Lucy pointed out this was a new nipple and the hole is pretty small. I quickly cut it bigger and popped the nipple back into the still struggling calf’s mouth. This time she really went to town and got about half of the bottle in her. After this, we let her go to see if she’d go to mom, or go find shade. She trundled off to find shade and we left them both alone for the night.

We have to see #72 nurse from mom today. If that doesn’t happen, we will have to put Sprinkles in the head gate and milk her to get colostrum. Then we’ll bottle feed it to #72. At that point, we’ll probably have a bottle calf hanging around here. They are super cute, and super a pain in the butt so I’m really hoping that she’s nursing on her own when we get out there today. Not to mention hand milking a pissed off beef cow isn’t the easiest thing to do. I’m really not looking forward to that.

We are all set to make the ride in the morning to Siler City.  #14 has been enjoying her unlimited grass diet and peace and relaxation in the pasture with Betsy. However tomorrow she, and I, will be heading to Siler City to the processor. That’s after we get her loaded in the morning, I hope. We should be getting beef back on the 22nd of this month and we once again will be stocked with all the cuts. As our original Groupon deal ends next week, and we are taking two cows in July, we should also be able to keep beef in stock a lot better going forward so if you’ve been hoping to time your visit right to get some goodies, your wait is over!

The next cow to go is LF33 and then probably #11. We’ll see as time goes on. In the meantime, get on the calendar to come by after the 22nd and pick up some beef. You are going to need steaks for the 4th of July!

Our new calf, #71 didn’t survive his first few days. Although we found him in the border wire between the cows and the pigs, we don’t know what actually killed him. Maybe he was not nursing correctly. Maybe he got stepped on as everyone piled into the shade to get away from the sun. Maybe he hung himself on the hog wire, as he was determined to get through the wire from the day he was born. We don’t know. We do know that his mom was on the cull list prior to his birth, and now that she’s lost a calf she’s moved up on the schedule. That’s a shame, because she’s been one of our best moms for a long time but this day comes for every cow.

This morning we had a new bull calf on the farm. Miguel texted me that we had a new bull calf but I was heading South to Sanford and he was heading North to the market so nobody was able to do anything right away.

When I got back, I had some pigs to castrate (that’s another story) so they had to come first. Then I headed down to find our new little calf and get him tagged and castrated. It’s important to get the calf first thing because they are so easy to catch when they are first born. After a day or so, you can’t just walk up on them anymore and tagging them gets to be a lot more trouble.

So into the tall grass I went looking for this new calf. In the process of looking for the calf born today, I found the calf born yesterday. He hadn’t been tagged or banded yet though so I hopped off the Gator and got him all fixed up. But that meant I still needed to find the newest calf. After walking for about 10 minutes, I took the Gator and started making laps. Another 15 minutes of looking and I still hadn’t found him. That’s when Miguel arrived and told me he was in the protected area, behind the electric wire where nobody goes. Sure enough, he was right there so we popped in an ear tag and put on a quick band.

I thought we were done but Miguel reminded me the calf needed to be with mom, not behind the wire. He got himself into this mess, why do I have to get him out? Oh right, I’m the farmer.

So I picked him up and carried him all the way to the other end of the paddock and put him down at mom’s feet. She was glad to see him and started immediately cleaning him up and letting him try to nurse. Curious is one of our best moms so hopefully she’ll have him frolicking about by tomorrow. We’ll keep an eye on him. In the meantime, that’s two new calves in two days. It’s definitely calving season around here.

Yesterday #1 had a new little bull calf. Today he was tagged #69 and banded. He’s doing very well and is enjoying hiding in the tall grass.

Today we had a surprise in the pasture.

#65 had her first calf this morning. A cute little girl who received an ear tag of #70. Vicente found her when he was moving the cows and after Miguel letting me know I popped down there to get an ear tag in her. We were sure if she was born Sunday afternoon or Monday morning but when I walked up to her, it was obvious she’d just been born. Her umbilical cord was still pink and fresh, not even beginning to dry up. She also had no fight or flight in her, she just hung out and let me check her over and pop in a quick ear tag. Mom was right there making sure she was ok, of course.

Happy Memorial day, little cow. Welcome to the farm.

Yesterday we had a new little calf born on the farm. #45, our newest mom, had her first calf.

This calf was especially neat because we got to see her mom just born, almost two years ago, in the video here.

#45 is the daughter of Uno (#1) and Benjamin. She’s been a perfect cow in every way and now she’s given us a perfect little calf who is as well a female.

We’ve only kept records for a few years, so it’s neat to be able to start tracing our cows blood lines back through the generations.