Calf 1 - Sugar's

The first day I could have a calf born and this afternoon one was born to Sugar.  A beautiful looking little male calf.  Kind of a surprise.  While it is the first possible day for the cows to have a calf, yesterday when I looked at the cows I didn't think one would have a calf born today.  I figured Sugar, Red and #60 looked to be at least a few more days out.

Last year Sugar had her placenta detach prematurely and the calf died.  So I am happy Sugar is back to normal when having calves.

I planned on putting a large hay bale out later in the afternoon so I had kept the cattle in the corral after feeding them in the morning.  So Sugar gave birth mixed in with everyone.  How I realized something had happened was that I had heard for an hour or so a cow occasionally mooing in the corral.  Finally I went to see what was going on and found a recently born calf.

Sugar was mooing at the other cattle to keep a distance from her and her calf.  The calf was walking and seemed to be looking for milk.  The calf was looking at the front part of Sugar or else looking at other cows nearby.  I opened the loading corral gate and put Sugar and her calf in there so they could be alone.  Later when I put the large hay bale out I let all the other cattle out to eat it.  I put some other hay in the corral and closed the corral gate and will keep Sugar and her calf in the corral for a day.

Donna came over to see the calf and help me band and ear tag the calf.  By now the calf was standing next to Sugar but not trying to search for milk.  Earlier I thought I had seen a little white on the calf's mouth, and Donna saw that one of Sugar's nipples was smaller than the other nipples.  So we think the calf had drunk some milk already.  The calf would move around and occasionally try to hop so it did have energy like it had drunk milk earlier.

So... I'm off to a start.  The bad news is the weather forecast for this weekend and next week.  A strong artic cold front is predicted to come on Friday.  Friday and Saturday it supposed to snow and be windy and cold.  The high temperature predicted this coming Saturday is only 18 degrees.  Our normal high temperatures these days is in the low 40s.  Possible record low temperatures.   Not a good time to have calves being born.   Every year it seems as if something is a hassle when calving.  I hope this weekend none of the cows have a calf.

21 second video of the calf and Sugar:  https://youtu.be/fGeR_PhuRy0