2025: Calf 13 - 7's

I went to bed after 2:30 am last night.  Before I did I went out to fill the cattle's water trough.  While doing so I could hear some soft mooing in the corral.   Not common so I turned on my flashlight.   I saw the mooing was coming from cow 7.  She was bending down and licking a calf.  I checked.  Yup.  It was her newborn calf.  She was licking it clean.  The calf probably was born around 2 am.   It is a bull calf.  That makes 7 boys and 6 girls this year.   Last year it was 5 boys and 8 girls.

This afternoon Michael came over to help me band and ear tag the calf.  It went well as the calf was pretty relaxed.

Lot of photos.  First off, photos when I checked on the calf this morning.   The calf is a beautiful calf.    I wasn't fast enough to get a photo, but at one point a calf born one month ago stood nose to nose with this calf.  Quite a size difference. The older calf looked way larger than this calf.

   

The calf just wanted to sleep but his mother started licking him until he finally stood up.

And another cow's calf came over to check if that calf could get milk from this cow.  Nope.

The photos after we banded and ear tagged the calf.

The cows eating hay at the feeder.  I see some of the calves also are trying to eat a little hay.  Or in this photo, a calf lays near the mother while she eats hay.

So all the calves have been born this year.