Calf 6 and Calf 8

Buster continues to get better.  He is perkier, and by this evening his diarrhea had ended as his stool, while still soft, is firming up.  When one's diet consists of just water and milk that is to be expected.

I fed him the last of his electrolyte added water at 3 am.  Since then Donna helps me place Buster and Big Red in the loading ramp so Buster can drink milk.  She doesn't like him drinking from her and will kick when Buster initially drinks from her.

Last night I read online about the ways to get a cow to bond with a calf not her own.  They include skinning the dead calf and tying that skin to the new calf so the new calf smells like the cow's calf, to smearing the dead calf's manure on the new calf, or the cow's manure on the new calf.  Anything to get the cow's smell on the new calf.  Or somehow get the cow to lick the calf to transfer her smell onto him.  Donna came up with a molasses and grain mixture and we tried it this evening.  I rubbed it all over the calf's back and put the calf in front of Big Red in the loading ramp.  Red loved the mixture.  She licked the molasses, but bit the calf's skin to eat the grain.  So tomorrow, molasses with some salt but no grain.

I do still feed Buster one batch of fluids still. I need to give him one batch of Probios a day.  I did it today at 9:30 pm.  His last milk feeding was at 7 pm and the 9:30 pm fluid feed should last him till morning.

It has rained off and on since noon.  In the afternoon after his 1:30 pm feeding we dried him off and put Buster in the barn.  Hard to bond with Big Red when separated from her.  Since he would now stay on the straw in the shelter next to the barn, I left him there after his 7 pm feeding.  Red and Buster were snuggled together when Donna and I checked on him at 9:30 pm.  Red had licked the rest of the molasses from Buster's back.

I just checked a few minutes ago.  It is raining, but Red and Buster are laying next to one another under the shelter attached to the barn.


Between 1 pm and 2 pm today cow #20 gave birth to a black white faced calf. Calf number 8. I don't know the calf's sex as I still don't get too near the calves.  Based on the calf's face Donna thinks the calf is a heifer.

Cow eating some of her placenta afterbirth just after it came out of her.

Mama was somewhat relaxed when I was in the pasture *somewhat* near her calf.  Her calf is the white object left of center and Mama is behind the two trees.  By 'relaxed' I mean, while alert, Mama did not stand, or shake her head at me, or try to run me off.