Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Calf 6 and Calf 7

Buster is doing better.  He is more alert.  This afternoon he was fairly persistent trying to drink milk from Big Red.  She kept moving and kicking to keep him away so Donna and I put both of them in the loading ramp so he could drink.  Buster still has diarrhea.

Donna overslept so Buster didn't have his fluid feeding until 4 am, not 3 am.  Buster likes to have his head rubbed.  Donna found the beginning of two horns.  I'll have to get rid of them later after they grow out more.


This morning between 10 am and 11 am Mama had her calf.  I am not positive of the calf's sex but Donna has an almost perfect record telling a calf's sex by looking at the calf's head and face.  Donna thinks Mama's calf is a heifer.

Because Buster has scours I decided not to approach the calves for the time being.  It is too dangerous to spread scours to the rest of the calves. The bull calves will be banded/castrated later even though that will mean running after them.  And the ear tags can be added later to tell the sex.  Later it may be hard to tell which calf goes with which mother, but while nice, it is not essential.

It was time this afternoon to give the cattle another two large hay bales.   Usually I feed a small hay bale to the cattle in the corral to allow me freedom to put the large bales in the pasture.  But I do not want the cattle, and especially the calves, in the corral where they could possibly be infected.

So Donna drove her pickup into my pasture and I tossed out two small hay bales to distract the cattle.  I was able to put two large bales into the pasture before the cattle finished eating the small bales.

Mama, ever protective of her calf, hung back in the far corner of the pasture while I put the hay bales in the pasture.


Look at this beautiful and interesting looking calf.  I wondered if Mama was part Jersey or part Corriente.  Based on the calf's colors I think Mama is part Corriente.  While I think the calf is beautiful, mostly likely I will be docked in price when it comes time to sell the calf.



Mama's udder is ginormous.

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