Calf 5 - Maria's

Around 12:30 pm today the fifth calf was born.  The mother is Maria.  The calf is a heifer.  While Maria has had either white-faced or brockle-faced calves in the past, this is her first all black calf.

When I checked the cows in the corral I saw Maria had a large "water balloon" hanging out her back indicating an imminent birth.  The liquid was more red with blood than usual which concerned me.  I went in the house to get my camera and called Donna.  I was back outside in about 5 minutes and Maria was licking her newborn calf as it has just been born.

An audience

While the calf wasn't born in a snowbank, it was on the edge where the ground was wet.  When the calf tried to first stand up Maria tried to help and nudged the calf.  The calf went end-over-end / head-over-heels and its face ended up in the water next to the snowbank.  I picked up the wet calf and carried it over to a dry part of the corral.  Maria was beside herself when I touched her calf.

Of course last year's calves had to check out the new calf.  Earlier when Maria was trying to lick the calf I had to chase three of last year's calves away from the newborn calf.  Below two of them came back to check the calf out again.

The calf's first success at standing upright on all four legs.  Maria was not too happy with Donna and I watching.

It took a number of trials-and-errors before the calf found the udder and successfully figured out how to latch onto a nipple.  Thankfully Maria usually would stand still while the calf went through this learning process.

Five hours later with her new ear tag.

Here is a 1 minute 8 second video of Maria doing the initial cleaning of the calf after it was born minutes earlier:  https://youtu.be/CRxojxj9-Z8

Here is a 1 minute 48 second video of the calf taking her first steps.  My camera's zoom doesn't work so the image isn't as close as I would like.  Also my camera's lens partially fogged so the image is fuzzy around the sides.

https://youtu.be/9iupyuHl568

Calf king of the hill

I just checked.  Still no new calves again today.

I'm going to have to start carrying my camera when I check on the cattle in the morning.  Beulah's calf is always up to something.  This morning I found him at the top of this snow pile.  By the time I returned with my camera he was starting to climb/slide down the pile.

On the right is Diamond.  She tried several times to climb up to the top of the pile to reach the calf but kept sliding back down.

I think I will rename Beulah's calf.  'Snowball' is a better name than 'Snowbank'.

Here is a 32 second video of the calf coming down the snow hill: https://youtu.be/nVnvYwf-jow

Snowbank calf on a snowbank

Still no new baby calves born today.

This morning the snowbank calf stood on a snowbank when I checked on the cattle.  All the other cattle stood on the ground.

Cattle photos

No new calves.  I just checked.   Several cows are so big they look like houses walking when they move.

One cow grooming a very pregnant cow

I let the "Bad Mama" cow out of the corral and put Mama in the corral to keep Toby company.  The "Bad Mama" cow changed.  She went from a cow who wanted nothing to do with her calf to being a 'helicopter parent'.  The first day mingling with the other cattle "Bad Mama" would headbutt any other calf who came near her calf.  Sometimes they hung out with the other cattle (like tonight) and other times they spend time by themselves (like this morning when I took these photos as she was grooming her calf).

Also this morning I found cow #60 had this wire stuck in her tail. I don't know how long this morning she had been walking around with this tangled in her tail. This was one of the wire fence pieces I had used to protect an evergreen tree and which the cattle had taken down to reach the tree's lower branches.  I had leaned the wire pieces back against the tree.  The cow kept walking as I tried to untangle the wire from her tail.  Eventually I removed the wire from her tail.

Snowbank

No calves born today so far.

Sunday morning, when the temperature was still below freezing, I found Beulah's calf laying in a snowbank.  Once again.  Beulah was over eating hay at the feeder.  Beulah's calf has a thing for laying in the snow as I have seen him do this other times.  I think I am going to call him: Snowbank.

I spent part of the afternoon raking some of the manure out of the loafing shed. The rest of the manure was either still frozen or 'water logged' from the melting snow. Then, as all the cattle were at the feeder eating hay, I raked over half of the manure away from the large trees the cattle lay under at night and parts of the day.

Calf 4 - Panda's

This afternoon Panda had her calf.  A little bull calf.  That makes all boys from Toby so far.  A nice sunny afternoon.  While the ground was wet it wasn't muddy or snow covered where Panda had her calf.

By the time Donna and I banded and ear tagged the calf a few hours later the calf had drunk milk from his mother three times.  I think this nicer weather contributed to this calf being more active than the previous two calves born this week.

Between the calf's wet fur and the wet ground, my pants and gloves were wet by the time I finished banding and ear tagging the calf.

I think this is the first all black calf Panda has had.

Tractor window fix

This afternoon I installed the new window in the tractor cab.  It was more of a problem than I expected.  The window is held in place in three areas (holes).  Two of the areas I was able to easily unscrew with a screwdriver and a wrench.

The third area, which is also the lever that opens and closes the window, was another matter.  I could not find how to detach the two pieces that go on each side of the glass.

I called the John Deere dealer to ask the maintenance person how to take the lever apart.  I had to leave a message.  By the time he called me back (at 6:07 pm) I had figured it out. After fiddling around with it for a while I then decided to take the lever off the tractor cab, then try to take the black piece off the lever.

The cotter pin bolt seen below has a very small "c" ring to lock it in place.  The "c" ring was on top of the pin so that when I struggled to take it off it came off suddenly and both pieces fell to the ground.  I could hear the pin bounce off boards next to the tractor on its way down to the ground.  I had to get a magnet.  Surprisingly I found the "c" ring, which I was afraid I would never find.  I couldn't find the pin.  I had to drive the tractor out of the pole shed.  Still couldn't find the pin.  I had to move / clear quite a number of boards before I finally found the pin.  It took a long time.  When I reinstalled the lever I put the pin in from the top and then added the "c" ring at the bottom.

But I needed to get the black plastic piece off the lever as the glass went in the large groove in the black plastic.  I worked and worked on it and couldn't figure it out.  The black plastic turned but wouldn't unscrew from the lever.

How to get it apart:  The small groove in the black plastic is not decorative. The very end is a cap.  Under the cap is a locking nut.  However I couldn't unscrew the nut as it turned.   The end of the beige plastic has a plastic pin. Push the pin out and the swivel end comes off and then apart.  Under the two pieces that make up the swivel is another nut.  Holding that nut I then could unscrew the end nut and take the black plastic piece off.   Easy when one knows how it all works.

My neighbor Curtis helped me install the window as it is too awkward to manage with one person and easy with two people.

New window installed after spending $373 on it.

Sleeping in a snowbank

This morning I found Beulah's calf sleeping in a snowbank near the hay feeder as his mother ate hay.  He was fine.  I checked - he was not shivering.  Go figure.

When I checked at sundown Beulah's calf was under the big trees and was laying in the narrow gap between two trees.  He certainly seems to be fine with sleeping in odd places.

As of sundown, no new calves born today.

Cattle and calves

No new calves today (so far).

Some photos of the cattle.

Cattle relaxing in the expanded snow cleared area by the trees.

Beulah's three calves (plus Sugar standing in the back).  Light brown: Beulah's heifer born last year.  Calf laying in the back: Beulah's steer from this year.  Green ear tag: [Panda] Beulah's calf from back when I bought Beulah and this calf.

Beulah

Mama cow and cow 90 who is so pregnant she is laying funny; kind of like she is posing for 'Playcow'.

Wednesday's calf who stays warm and dry in the straw.  One of the few times I seen the calf laying alone.  Usually his mother lays right next to him unless she is eating from the hay bale.

Calf 3 - 110's

Wednesday morning after Donna and I had tagged and banded Beulah's calf, and put Toby into the south corral and removed the calves from the south corral, Donna discovered a baby calf in the snow in the NE pasture.

Cow #110 had given birth.  She had been with the cattle in the corral when we put Toby into the south corral.  When Donna found the baby calf cow #110 was standing under the trees way over by the road.  She was nowhere near her calf.  She came over when Donna and I started to fuss over her calf.   Yes... this is that cow. The one that ignores or is initially mean to her newborn calf and is conflicted.  She licks it but she also headbutts it.

Cow 110 did not have her calf when I checked after 7 am Wednesday morning.  It was 11 am when Donna and I started banding and tagging Beulah's calf and cow 110 already had her calf by then.  We had noticed some stuff hanging from her back end and thought she would give birth soon.  We didn't realized what we start was a little bit of her afterbirth.   The afterbirth hadn't really started to come out as the calf hadn't drank yet. 

Because several of the calves from last year were fixated on Beulah's new calf and one kept trying to mount it, earlier I put Beulah and her calf into the loading corral ramp area.  Now that cow 110 had her calf, and the calf did not appear to have drunk milk yet, I had to get Beulah and her calf out and cow 110 and her calf into the loading corral ramp area so we could get the calf to drink from his mother.

Rather than carrying the calf I used a plastic sled to drag him into the loading corral ramp area.

The calf was weak and I had to help hold him up in a standing position while Donna guided his mouth to the cow's teat. But the calf didn't want to drink.  I think it was because he was weak, instead of it being that he already had drunk and his stomach was full.  I'm sure it had been over two hours since the calf was born.

So I got a bottle and Donna milked the cow.  I had tried to milk the cow but I don't have the knack.   We tried to get the calf to suck the bottle's nipple but he wouldn't.  So I got the plastic bag and long plastic tube and we put that tube down his throat and fed him that way.

Afterwards I got some hay for him to lay on it the corner and some hay for the mother to eat.  The mother had only partially licked the calf clean so Donna dried the calf off with some towels.

"Thank you'  That feels soooo good."

I put some boards across the corner to keep the mother from reaching the calf in case the mother turned mean again.  Last year she attacked her newborn calf, slammed it against a tree and tore the calf's ear.

It wasn't long after Donna milked the cow that she started to expel her afterbirth.

I left the cow and calf in the loading corral ramp area.  I checked on them at 2:30 pm.  The calf was standing in the corner.  He seemed to want to come out from under the boards.  But sometimes the mother would lick him and sometimes the mother would headbutt him.  So I put the mother in the 'time out' area of the loading ramp and then I walked the calf into that area.  The calf was hungry and drank and drank from all the teats and would head bump the udder to 'shake' more milk down.  Cow 110 would alternately reach around to try to lick the calf or would push it.  The calf would wobble but would remain upright and continue to drink milk.

Good.  The calf knows how to drink and now has enough energy to stand on his own.


Later in the afternoon I put out another large hay bale for the cattle. While the rest of the cattle were in the corral, Beulah and her calf were in the NE pasture.  The calf was sleeping next to a snowbank near where Beulah was scrounging around for leftover hay to eat from the previous hay bale. Once I brought out the new hay bale Beulah was a pest as she tried to eat the hay as I removed the twine from the bale.  I was able then to chase Beulah away long enough to drop the metal feeder over the bale.

I also scraped more snow in the NE pasture.  Partly to protect a few more trees but also to enlarge the snow-free area around the large pine trees.  Most of the cows like to lay under these trees at night.  Their body heat has melted the snow next to the large trees but further away from the trees the snow is deeper and too much to melt.

After 6:30 pm when I let the cattle out of the corral to go to the hay bale I saw cow 110's calf was standing and drinking from her.  Great news.  The high temperature Wednesday was 43 degrees and plenty of melting occurred.  Water started to stand.  By 7 pm the only part of the loading corral ramp area without water was the corner the calf laid in.   So I cleaned the manure out from the barn's covered area and put out a fresh bale of straw.  I let the cow out of the loading corral and she immediately went to the south corral and the hay bale there.  I walked the calf over to the straw and set him down in the corner.  The sun had gone down and the calf was shivering.  The barn's covered area and straw should help him warm up.  And it started snowing again after sundown.

I just got done checking the cattle for the night.  The baby calf is awake and laying in a different position in the straw.  His mother is laying next to him and chewing her cud.  Toby is standing at the other end of the straw.  The other cattle are all around the trees near the road - some standing, some sitting, a few laying and sleeping.  Beulah's calf is laying and sleeping next to Beulah's calf from last year.

So far three bull calves (I am counting the first one that died).  All three were boys.  Maybe I won't repeat last year when most of my calves were heifers?

Calf 2 - Beulah's

Tuesday afternoon the second baby calf was born.  Since Monday night Beulah stayed in the loafing shed away from most of the other cattle.  I had a dental cleaning at 1 pm and when I got home (after also picking up my new tractor window [$372]) at 2:45 pm I found the calf standing next to Beulah and Beulah eating some of her afterbirth.

Later in the afternoon I saw the calf drink from Beulah, and after 7 pm, even though I brought out some hay in the corral feeder for Beulah, she took her calf from the loafing shed out to the NE pasture to be with the other cattle.  They ended up by the gate near the garage, and not at the hay feeder.  Toby, the dad, came over to check out his new son.  A few of the 'aunties' came over to check out the new baby. I wish Beulah had stayed in the loafing shed with her calf.  After she went to the NE pasture it started to snow lightly.  I want the calf to stay dry.

Look at the 'ring' around his eyes.  Yup, he is Beulah's calf.

"I'm coming Mama."

The calf spent the night outside.  Initially Beulah and the calf stayed near the gate by the garage.  By the time I went to bed they were at the gate between the NE pasture and the north pasture.  That is where I found them the next morning.  We had several inches of snow overnight.   But the calf appears to be doing well.

Wednesday morning Donna came over to help me band (castrate) the bull calf and put a tag in its ear.

Toby and his son

Family portrait: Toby, his son, and Beulah - the calf's mother.