That Time of Year Again

We've had 2 baby calves in the last 2 days! We're just a little early this year - usually don't start for another couple weeks. We saw the first baby last night, but momma had her hid good tonight. We could have spent hours searching the pasture and never found her. The cows must go through bait-and-switch training because it sure seems sometimes like they intentionally lead us in exactly the opposite way from where the baby is actually hidden. We'll just have to try again tomorrow. She was getting around good last night and there was evidence she'd been working on momma's udder, so we aren't too worried about her yet. The other new baby was getting around good too and I did get a few pictures!

Jarrod and his Dad got our 4wheeler fixed this weekend - just in time for this season of intensive cow checking. You've probably heard me refer to the 4wheeler as our 'pony'. It idles nicely now and if I'm lucky Jarrod will let me take the Dodge when I'm flying solo. I do look forward to these peaceful fall evenings checking the cows as the sun is low in the sky. I also included a new picture of that late spring baby that was born in June. She is growing good too!

A new baby calf...in June?

Little storm blew through this morning...and during calving season, storms sometimes kick-start the calving process. Spring calving season has long been done, but that's exactly what happened out in the pasture today. We have a spring cow that we didn't think was bred...she sure didn't look like she was gonna calve when the other cows did in March. When it came time to put the cows out to the summer pasture, she looked a little like she might actually be carrying a calf. And sure enough, she calved, she was just 3 months behind everyone else. Big Red had herself a little black heifer. We managed to get it tagged and vaccinated without too much excitement.

On a side note, the wheat is getting close to being ready to harvest. We bit some berries tonight in a couple different fields. They were pretty darn close in the one field, and still smushy in the other field. I'm sure some will try cutting this weekend. I'd give it another week.

The baby calves are here!!!

Wow - didn't realize I hadn't posted all summer since we made it through harvest at the beginning of July! The last few weeks of August have been spent enjoying the sunsets and green pastures while carefully watching the herd for signs of impending births. We have 5 baby calves on the ground now in our fall herd. Lost a 6th. It's always sad, but it's part of having animals. Had 14 cows/heifers that were possibly bred, so hopefully we have a little ways to go yet before the fall calving season is over for us!

We had a strange occurrence happen tonight - normally we leave the gate open while we check the cows. The wind was out of the north today so we headed to the northwest corner of the pasture searching for the cows. 7 of the 10 were together in a valley and the other 3 were just over the hill. We took our time (ok well I took my time taking photos and making Jarrod stop here and stop there), but when we popped over the hill to check the last 3, they were clear down by the gate!!!!! So we hauled some major a** over the gopher holes and when we got close, Jarrod hopped over the fence and walked around from the road to the gate so we didn't spook them right on out the gate with the 4wheeler! And it worked! Jarrod said it was a good thing they were the heifers and didn't know where the gate was at yet! If it had been the cows, they'd been long gone and we'd been having ourselves a roundup tonight!

We've been training the Tuff dog to load and ride on the 4wheeler so I haven't taken the camera along as much as I usually do. It's just too hard to drive AND hold the dog AND do the camera too. Tuff is starting to get better so I tried it tonight as a passenger while Jarrod did the driving. But then of course, he was always driving the opposite way of the way of a good picture, or blocking my view, or the dog was popping onto the view...I did get a few good ones though!

Red + Black = Black!

Cold front moved through this week, so guess what? We had another baby calf! Big Red had herself a little black angus bull baby out of our bull we call Okie. Our other little black heifer calf that was born about a month ago is healthy too.

Oh Baby!

We got a little surprise this weekend when one of our new spring cows decided to calve on one of the coldest mornings of the winter so far! Seems like the cold fronts always trigger a calving event! Last spring we expanded our herd and purchased a few cow-calf pairs. Those calves went to sale this fall. By then the cattle markets had dropped so much we were wishing we'd waited until fall to purchase those pairs! Anyway, those cows weren't exposed to our bull until May, so we weren't thinking about calving until Feb - Mar. Apparently, these cows were already bred the day we brought them home, since we've already started calving and it's barely January! Heifer calf born Saturday morning is doing well, the calving went off without human intervention, so it could have been worse! Here are some pictures of the first spring calf born into our herd in 2009!

Weaned!

The bottle calf (aka booger butt, kiddo, butthead and many more loving nicknames) is finally weaned! Yeah for me! No more messing with the dang bottle every morning! He was born September 2 - so he is about 3 months old now. He'd probably make a good butcher calf if anyone is interested? I complain, but he has been a fun project. Really, he almost like a pet to me. If you scratch his backside, he squirms around toward you like a dog would! He nuzzles me and he's cute for about a half a second - just as long as you are prepared to dodge the headbutt because it will come if you spend too much time in the pen with him! These pics are a few weeks old now, but the latest I've got...

The Bottle Baby's Growin'

At the beginning of September we had a cow have twins. She claimed one calf and didn't want anything to do with the other. Which happens sometimes, and even when she claims them both, a lot of times she just doesn't physically have the milk to support both calves. So I became a momma to one of the twins.

The first picture I took of him on the second day he was alive only shows his wee wittle head. Nothing in the picture to indicate his true size (maybe 75 lbs max - probably more like 60 lbs). He had a cute black mark on his head shaped like a heart.

















We've been feeding him a bottle of warm milk replacer twice a day now for almost 8 weeks. He has started eating protein pellets consistently (maybe a couple lbs per day in 2 different eatings) and likes alfalfa eventhough he hasn't had much of anything in the way of grass or traditional feed so far.

Here is a picture at about 4 weeks:

And now he has grown considerably. It's hard to say what he weighs now. A LOT more than the 60 lbs he started at! He's had a bad habit of ramming his head into my backside if I take the bottle away from him when its empty. I'm much better off to let him continue to try and suck air out of it while I'm making sure he has pellets and fresh water. We will be trying to wean him off the milk and onto grass and pellets here in the next few weeks. We'll see how that goes...then maybe my bruises can have a break when he stops looking to me for his dinner (how many times do I have to tell you I don't have an udder)!

Calves are growing...

Well we've had the same ten calves for about a month now. Had a new one just this morning in front of the front that came through. Expecting a few more yet before we're done with our fall calving season. Here are a few pics of the curious little boogers that are growing well!

Lil' Squirts & Tall Drinks

3 babies now (and some bugs too)

Spent a lot of time in the pastures this week...still only 3 babies. One of these days we're gonna head out to the country after work and find all the cows calved on the same day! It rained this morning, so Jarrod and I checked cows together tonight. I got to take the camera along since I didn't have to drive! As much as I enjoy the chore of carting the 4-wheeler around to the pastures when we are calving - loading and unloading it and driving it - I do like to sit back and just enjoy the scenery and let Jarrod do all the work sometimes! Here is a picture of each new baby calf!

p.s. To my friend who takes the bug close-ups - I tried tonight - but I don't think I did as good as you! I did see the biggest nastiest hornet up close that I've ever seen in my life. And I don't know what kind of bugs are screwing in the other picture but I thought it was funny to catch them making baby bugs on camera!

Pictures of everything BUT the new baby calf

We had our second baby tonight - at dark - about 2 mins before the rain came pouring down. Thanks to my honed 4-wheeler racing skills, we made it back to the truck JUST before we would have been soaked! I think I ate 10 lbs of brome grass seed in my rush to keep from getting wet! It was a fun adventure and it was nice to witness a successful birth for once, instead of always only seeing the ones that need assistance. Dark chocolate (might turn out to be red) baldy baby was up and found some milk while we were there. Twinmaker didn't make twins this year. I didn't get any good pictures of the new baby, but I got pictures of other wildlife tonight.