Lots of crying

When Dan stopped by Tuesday night to pick up his branding iron I asked him to help me separate the calves into the south part of the corral so I can wean them.  The sorting process ended up being more of me herding the cows and bull out of the south part of the corral and leaving the calves.  It was tricky to herd Buddy the bull out.  He was standing and intently watching and trying to figure out what was going on.  Not a good thing to try to herd him along right then.  What made herding tricky is the cows would go stand by him when I was herding the cows.  Eventually the cows would amble towards the gate which Dan was managing.  Finally Buddy followed the last cow to leave.

Within minutes the calves figured out what had happened and were getting anxious.  I put out a fresh bale of hay in the feeder I built south of the barn to distract them.

The next morning lots of crying and calling.  Some of it was by the mother cows; mainly Momma and one or two other cows.  Beulah and the other cows seemed fine without their calves demanding milk.

So the day was filled with mooing, bellowing, crying and calling. I got to hear it over and over and over as I shoveled snow.  Each one has their own sound.  One calf varied between sounding like an elephant trumpeting or a bull elk calling a female.  He and another calf have piercing cries.

Rose was handling it better than the others.  Momma was more upset than Rose was.  The cattle can stick their heads through an area above the water trough.  When Rose was drinking water Momma put her head through the opening and briefly licked Rose's neck and head.

Last year thoee calves barely made a fuss when separated for weaning.  This year... it's going to be a long few days before they get over calling.

They get interested when I run the water from the pump.

As you can see, and I just found out today, this little steer calf is growing horns.  One can either cut them off, or put bands on them to make them fall off.  Once he is weaned I will try to remove his horns.  Not only can the horns be dangerous, the price one gets is reduced if they have horns.

Here is a video of the calves, then of Momma.  Of course when I took the video they were fairly quiet.  Later when I didn't have the camera the calves all started calling at the same time.

http://youtu.be/_w1_DtnPQO4
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