This morning Mama had her calf. Last year her calf was born May 26. So this year's calf was born about 5 weeks earlier. Soon Mama will be back on the normal calving schedule for the cows. Beulah, who should have had her calf by now, has slipped back as she hasn't had her calf yet as her calf last year was born April 3.
Mama is the over-protective mother for the first 3 weeks after her calf is born. Fortunately I already had Mama in the south corral with Toby and Muscles. So I don't have to worry about Mama fighting with other cows who get close to her calf. Mama knows better than to try to fight with Toby.
Of course Mama's over-protectiveness also means I can't get to her calf. I looked through the fence even though Mama would either charge at me to scare me from the fence, or else get her calf to walk away from the fence where I was at. So I couldn't tell if the calf was a male or female. I put it down to 40% chance it was male and 60% it was female. Donna came over in the afternoon and looked through the fence. Eventually she thought it was 100% chance the calf was a female. That meant we didn't have to try to separate the calf from Mama so we could band it.
I'm not going to separate them either to ear band the calf. All the other calves have ear bands. Even though this calf looks like the other calves, not having an ear band will mean the calf is Mama's calf. This makes life easier.
It was hard to get good photos of the calf as I has to take them outside the south corral, and when Mama was not charging me. Eventually I got a number of photos.
Most of Mama's nipples are very large. Fortunately the calf was able to drink as several of Mama's nipples are smaller where the calf can drink from them.
A few times the calf was in Toby's way and Toby pushed it aside. Otherwise Toby was fine. And he likes to eat.
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