Stormy weather

Our still-unnamed newborn calf has certainly had a baptism by fire. Well, water.

The huge rainstorm we were predicting Saturday night into Sunday kinda fizzled out. We checked the calf Sunday morning and she was fine, so we opened gates and let Maggie and her baby out to explore the driveway area. I should note that Sunday afternoon was supposed to be dry.

The calf got drenched in a few squalls as she followed Maggie around...

...including a brief but rather intense hail storm.

Later, we noticed the baby curled up near a brush pile while Maggie wandered off to eat.

Nothing unusual about this. Newborn calves normally curl up in obscure locations while their mothers linger nearby. Since we could see the calf from the house window, we kept an eye on her.

A squall came through, dropped some rain, and moved on.

Another squall came through, dropped some rain, and moved on.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another. What happened to dry weather?

"I don't think that poor baby's been dry since birth," Don remarked at one point. This is when the calf was barely 24 hours old.

(Calf's viewpoint: "All I know about the world is that it's always wet.")

Another squall came and went. At one point, between cloudbursts, I went out to clean the barn. Since the barn has a metal roof, the noise of yet another passing squall was deafening.

It was at this point that Don came into the barn and nearly had to shout over the noise of the rain. He said he went to check the baby, since she hadn't moved in several hours, and he was concerned because she seemed listless. We knew we had to get her under cover.

This was easier said than done. (Most things on a homestead are easier said than done.) I had already pitched a small pile of hay in one of the barn corners in hope the calf would curl up on it. The difficulty wasn't getting Maggie or her baby into the barn; the difficulty was keeping them there, especially through these endless torrential squalls that kept hitting us.

The barn doors swing open, and since we seldom close them, they tend to get jammed in an open position over time. So we had to dig out the doors in the muck and mud. Then, since we planned to keep Maggie indoors with her baby, we needed to get a tub of water inside too. This tub hadn't been used for a while, so we had to hose it clean, then drag it inside, then find a hose long enough to fill it.

When everything was ready, I located a tiny halter and tied a rope to it. Don was right; the baby was listless and shivering. I suggested getting the Gorilla cart once again to transport her into the barn, since we're past the age where we relish carrying a wiggling 50-pound newborn calf uphill in the rain. The two of us managed to hoist the baby inside the cart, and started pushing her toward the barn.

In case you're wondering where Maggie was through all this, the answer was waaay down in a pasture, happily grazing. Eh, new mom. She isn't fully aware of her responsibilities yet.

We finally got the calf into the barn and out of the cart (at which point the halter also slipped off her head; we might need to purchase a smaller halter). But at least she was under cover. Don toweled her off and got her as dry as possible.

By this point Maggie had figured out that we were messing with her calf, so she was bellowing at a gate just outside the barn door. It was fairly easy to get her inside with her baby. We closed them in and left them alone for a bit to relax.

I went out after an hour or so (and a couple more squalls) and saw the calf was, indeed, lying on the pile of hay. That was a nice sight.

Maggie was resting by the feed box on the other end.

The calf soon got to her feet and went to see her mama. Her shivering had stopped and her movements were strong, so we think she'll be fine. Guess who's staying locked up until the rain passes?

But all these shenanigans with rain squalls and torrential downpours inspired Don to come up with the perfect name for the new baby.

Stormy.

Saturday surprise

Don and I were working on a project out in the yard today when a low "moo" caught our attention. We looked up into the pasture, into which we had released the cows yesterday. Maggie, our Jersey heifer, was ... staring at something on the ground.

"Did Maggie have her calf?" I exclaimed.

Don and I grabbed boots and went to look. Yup, Maggie had dropped her calf. This wasn't supposed to happen for another two weeks or so.

The birth had happened just moments before.  The baby was still wet and not yet on its feet.

Boy? Girl? No idea yet.

Maggie vigorously licked her newborn. Licking accomplishes three things: It cleans the calf, it stimulates its circulation, and it familiarizes the mother with her newborn's scent.

Meanwhile we were tasked with getting Maggie and her baby into the corral for a couple of reasons. One, we don't like newborns to be out in the field just after birth. Too vulnerable. And two, we have something like three-quarters of an inch of rain moving in tonight and tomorrow, and wanted the baby under cover.

After some discussion, we decided to cut a hole in the fence and fetch the calf in the Gorilla cart. God bless that Gorilla cart, it has a thousand and one uses.

We fetched a lead rope and pressed Older Daughter into service. I clipped the lead rope to Maggie (she was cagey but not aggressive, always nice to see considering bovine post-partum hormones), then handed the lead rope to Older Daughter. Don pulled over the Gorilla cart, and I lifted the wet and slimy (and heavy) baby and laid it in the cart. I also took the opportunity to check the gender: It's a girl!

We carefully transported the calf down to the driveway. My job was to keep the calf – who very much wanted to try out her new legs – from trying to get to her feet. Don pulled the cart. Older Daughter pulled Maggie along behind (and tried to keep her from crowding Don). By hook and by crook, we got the animals down from the pasture into the driveway, then pulled the cart to the feed lot behind the barn. (The calf was trying to rise to her feet just as I snatched this photo.)

Now we could let Maggie relax and learn to be a mother.

The new baby is a darling little thing. She's half Jersey, half Angus.

Naturally the other animals are wildly curious to greet the newcomer. Here's Mignon, making overtures of friendship.

It didn't take the baby long to find the faucet. Good! Suck down that colostrum!

Meanwhile Maggie had a strand of mucus hanging down. It was so long it was dragging on the ground and getting tangled in her back legs.

I took a pair of scissors and snipped it shorter.

Maggie still hadn't dropped the placenta, so the mucus is a normal part of the post-partum process in cows.

I left Maggie and her baby alone for a couple hours, then went to check on them. They were both laying down, doubtless exhausted after their ordeal, and looking sleepy and content.

Maggie had also dropped the placenta, which was good to see. Often cows eat this; if it's still there by tomorrow, I'll throw it away.

It seems all is well in our little bovine world.

So that's our Saturday surprise. Maggie wasn't supposed to have her calf until Memorial Day weekend, but calves are born when calves are born. I'm just grateful we were here when it happened and could get everyone under cover before the rain moves in.

I guess we'll be building the calf pen and milking stall sooner than we realized.

Life on a homestead. Roll with the punches.

Romeo, oh Romeo....

We were able to successfully band (castrate) Romeo, our Valentine's Day calf, a few days ago.

This task took several days of fairly intense strategizing. We've banded many little bull calves, but that was at our last place where we had a better set-up. Here, we're still working on infrastructure, so we had to improvise ... as well as create a Plan B and a Plan C, just in case Plan A went awry.

First thing up: Get another castrating tool. We have one, of course, but things are still misplaced even four years after our move, and the castrator is one of those things. It's around somewhere, and doubtless we'll come across it when we no longer needed it.

But bull calves have a fairly short window for easy castration. Not to get too graphic here, but the testicles descend about ten days after birth, and if we go too much beyond that, the calf is too large to easily handle. We figured we had a window of about four or five days to get the job done.

Anyway, that's why we found ourselves purchasing a new castrator at the feed store. We still have plenty of bands (and oddly, I knew just where those were).

The bands are small. They come in different sizes, of course, but all we need are bands for baby calves.

The way a castrator works is to slip a band over the four prongs...

...and then squeeze the handles of the castrator to spread the band open. This is then slipped over the bull calf's equipment and released in place. It's doubtless uncomfortable for the calf, at least at first, but it's otherwise bloodless and painless. Pinched off from its blood supply, the testicles will dry up and fall off after a few weeks.

On the day we wanted to band Romeo, we started by digging out the mud, ice, and gravel that was blocking the two large barn doors from closing. This was at least an hour's hard labor and took, among much else, a pick axe to break up the ice and allow us to shovel away the rest. Some of our future projects include installing rolling (instead of swinging) doors AND to put in a drain right in front of the barn.

After that was done – and after we let the cows settle back down after all this industry, so they wouldn't, y'know, get suspicious – we returned to the barn and started moving hay bales.

The way the barn is arranged is there's a wide swinging gate right next to the feed box.

The gate swings open, allowing us access to the livestock side from the side where we store the hay.

The idea was to move hay bales to create a small enclosed area, close the big barn doors, then scoot the calf through the gate and close it behind us. This would give us a small escape-proof cubicle to work on the calf, and where Filet (Romeo's mama) couldn't reach us.

In theory we would do this while the cows had their heads buried in the feed box and Filet wouldn't even notice what we were doing. This was the theory, you understand.

Rather to our surprise, it worked. Romeo is too young to have much interest in the hay yet, so we got everything ready (hay bales moved, castrator armed and ready, rope to put around his neck, etc.), then fed the rest of the animals and closed the big barn doors. Then we swung the gate wide open, gently walked Romeo to the other side (now blocked in with hay bales), and latched the gate behind him. After this, I put a rope around his neck and wrapped it around the arm of the feed box, straddled him, and lifted up his back legs so his hind quarters were up in the air. More by feel than anything else, Don carefully pulled the testicles down, slipped the band over the top, and released it.

Voilà. Done. Filet literally never even noticed what was going on with her baby. The calf didn't struggle (much) or make any noise. Seconds after the band was in place, we unlatched the gate and shooed little Romeo back in with the rest of the animals, then re-opened the big barn doors.

Phew! Something we'd worried about for days was accomplished in about two minutes (and some of that time was spent was re-arming the castrating tool after the first band prematurely popped off).

I woke up the next day, sore and achy. I managed to pull a muscle in my upper back and my lower leg during the process of banding Romeo. That's what comes from shoveling heavy ice and gravel, then lifting and dragging 70-pound hay bales, then wrestling a calf into position. Older Daughter listened to my litany of complaints, then said, "Well, console yourself with the thought that you had a better day than the calf did." Yeah, hard to argue that.

Yet the day after his banding, Romeo seemed hardly to notice anything was different. He came over as he always does to see what I was doing while cleaning the barn. He even licked my hand in greeting (what a forgiving little man!). He stood next to his sister Mignon and experimented with eating some hay.

Once in a while he sorta bent himself into a pretzel – hey, something is numb back there – but that was it. He frequently did the adorable little skippy-hops of a healthy calf, so I knew he wasn't feeling too out of sorts.

Now that the task was done, we decided to reward the herd by releasing them from the corral. We've been keeping the animals cooped up for the last few weeks, in large part because the snow was too deep to let them out. But the weather has been moderating and the snow has melted off on the south side of the barn. The animals are usually found there during the day, soaking up the rays.

Today I opened the gate to the large pasture and called the animals over. They came around from the side of the barn, a little curious and puzzled, but didn't see the open gate to the pasture, no matter how much I tried to show them they had their freedom.

But it didn't take them long to find their way out. Later I walked over to the south-facing slope to check on them and found the family soaking up the sun.

This is Romeo's first time out of the corral, and he looked very content.

He was surrounded by his mama and sister.

So all is right with this little boy's world.

Gender reveal

After our Valentine's Day calf was born yesterday, I still wasn't able to determine the gender. That's because Filet was being, understandably, very protective.

This morning when I went out to feed, she immediately gathered her baby and retreated to the opposite side of the corral. Actually I didn't mind this. It meant I could clean the barn and fill the water tank without watching my back.

The baby actually navigated the deep snow with surprising dexterity.

I cleaned up the barn floor and then layered the floor mats with sawdust in hopes it would increase traction for the newborn. I noticed it slipping yesterday.

The baby followed Filet right into the barn for breakfast.

In fact, while mama ate her own breakfast, the newborn dove in for its own breakfast as well. Go for it, kiddo! Get all the colostrum you can!

I checked up on everybody midday, and saw Filet by herself out in the snow. But where was the baby?

It turns out baby was bedded down inside the barn. Smart baby.

In the evening, since all the animals were outside, I took the opportunity to clean the barn and scatter more sawdust.

Interestingly, the calf came loping over right away, curious to see me. Keeping a wary eye on Filet, I felt under its tail. A boy! Dear readers, meet Romeo.

We've marked on our calendars for ten days from now (when the testicles drop), at which point we'll band Romeo's equipment and turn him into a steer. He'll have a date with the freezer in a couple of years, but in the meantime we're enjoying having a calf again.