Calf season is an exciting time of year
Last spring, when we turned the bull in with the cows, I made a point to mark my calendar for this year’s calving season. With an average gestation of 280 days, I noted in my calendar Feb. 19 as the first likely day we could have a calf, if our bull got friendly on his first day in the field.
He must have.
On Feb. 19, we had our first calf of the season. Within 10 days, we had eight of the eleven calves we are expecting this year. Three of those calves came in less than 24 hours. We have done our due diligence with ear tags, castration bands and the earliest-allowed vaccinations.
The babies began to grow, bounce and leap around like they do when they are happy and healthy. I’ve said it before, this may well be my favorite time of year.
When the ninth calf was born, it didn’t fare so well. It was never as spunky as the others. We kept an eye on it, but it began to get worse. We gave it antibiotics, brought it and its mother inside, and tube fed it when it got too weak to eat on its own. But we lost him, despite these efforts.
Today, we discovered one of the previous eight is looking thin and has droopy ears. Because of our difficulties with the other calf, we brought him inside and gave him antibiotics as well. We don’t believe in unnecessary antibiotic use, so we won’t treat the other calves without symptoms of illness.
We can’t quite figure out who his mother is, however, to be able to turn her in to the pen with him. My husband is convinced it’s a cow named Minnie, but she has another calf nursing, and cows rarely share their milk.
Still, we put the mother who lost her baby in the pen with the calf, in case she may be inclined to take the seemingly orphaned calf. So far, she has not been willing, but she is also not being mean to him, so we plan to take the wait-and-see approach.
He doesn’t seem sick, mostly just hungry, so the thought has crossed our minds he is a twin and we missed it. Perhaps the night three babies were born, there were only two mothers who gave birth. They may not share milk, but they will babysit, and they will cuddle together. It is possible we assigned a baby to a cow that didn’t give birth to him. Unfortunately, we can’t be sure unless we have three more calves born this year.
At any rate, he had to eat, so we gave him a bottle of warm milk to fill his little belly while waiting to see if his mother came back when her udder got full or if the mother of the dead calf accepted him. By the time you read this, we will know if one of those things happened or if we are bottle-raising a baby this year.
I’ll keep you posted.