Calf 12 - Sugar's

Sugar finally gave birth this morning a little after 10 am.  When I checked on her at 10 am I could tell she was close to giving birth.  She was up and down in the loafing shed and moo moaning.  Her water started to come out in a 'balloon'. I went inside the house to get my camera and go to the bathroom.  10 minutes later when I went back outside Sugar was up and licking her newborn calf.   That was a fast birth!

A number of other calves were flitting about like mosquitoes trying to check out the new calf.  Sugar was getting annoyed with the other calves as she was trying to focus on her new calf.

The new calf was relatively quick in standing.  Between his wobbly legs, his mother constantly licking him, and the other calves milling about, it took him a little longer to get to drinking his mother's milk.

Eventually he did. His mother stopped licking him and chased off most other calves.  Mama's calf still hung around so I told her to stop bothering the new calf and to go away.  Mama's calf stopped,  looked and listened to me, and when I was done speaking, trotted off.

Later in the afternoon Donna came over to help me band the little boy and put an ear tag in his ear.  Sugar was none too happy with me when I grabbed her calf and picked him up as he started to run off.  I told Donna it was best that we went into the loading corral section to do the work on the calf as the way Sugar was acting I was concerned Sugar may do more than moo at us.

We worked on the calf as Sugar stood outside the gate and frantically mooed as us.  Donna and I were glad we had a gate between us and Sugar.

Sugar and her new calf spent all day resting in the corral.  The hay bale was outside the corral so Sugar wasn't getting anything to eat.  She continued to run off most of the other calves when they came again to check on the new calf.

In the evening, since the calf wouldn't follow Sugar out of the corral, I put some hay in the loading corral and let Sugar and her calf go in there for the night.  Between the hay, water, and fresh green grass growing in the loading corral, they will be happy and undisturbed for the night.  Sugar immediately started eating.

While I normally prefer male calves, in this case, since I plan to keep a few of the females calves as replacement calves, it would have been nice if Sugar's calf would have been a female as the calf is such a nice black calf.  But it wasn't to be.

On Beulah is left to calve; then I will be done with calving for this year.

Mama didn't attack me.  She just stared at me briefly to let me know to leave the new calf alone.  Then Mama walked off.  I left the new calf alone.

"While Sugar is distracted maybe I can sneak some of her milk."

Newly banded and ear tagged and trying to get back to his mother.

The slobber on the calf's had is from Sugar as she checked her calf out after being reunited with him after Donna and I banded the calf and put an ear tag in his ear.

Here is a 48 second video of the new calf and his first steps:  https://youtu.be/JQPsUi7LRA8