May 12, 2020 3 min read

There have been some strange things going on around here lately.

We’ve found some folks parked and just hanging out near our barn. We’ve seen some folks running up and down the creek across the road from us, seemingly at random. We’ve gotten up in the morning to find all the doors on our vehicles and equipment standing wide open, though nothing has been taken.

There was a very full moon last week, so it is possible that it is related.

It always seems like the kids get wound up during a full moon, so maybe other folks do, too.

At any rate, during this week of odd events, I was driving home from work and passed the field where our yearling heifers live. As I tend to do, I slowed down to take a look at them. There are some very lovely 15-month old animals up there.

Looking up the hill at them, I was certain that there was a calf with one of the heifers. I came to a near stop, wondering how any of our calves could have gotten into that field. Upon closer inspection, I realized the calf I was seeing was far too small to be one of our two-month-olds from the other field.

I continued home, but immediately told my husband one of our heifers had a calf on her. He was incredulous, agreeing with me they had not been exposed to a bull.

Still, we went to look.

The calf was nowhere to be seen, but the mother showed evidence of having given birth. We began to look through the tall grass for the calf, while the brief moos from the mom told him to stay hidden.

We nearly ran him over before we found him, missing his tightly coiled body by mere inches. Thankfully, he was fine and we were able to give him his shot and tag his ear. But when we looked the other mothers over, we noticed one was missing. We drove all over the field, following the rows of fence to look for her. When we were clear up on top of the hill, I saw her. She was in the bottom corner of the field.

My husband leaned forward and squinted a little and then exclaimed, “She’s got a calf on her, too.”

Sure enough, when we got to her, she also had a little calf at her side. We got her shot in her, but before we could get her tagged, she squirmed out of our arms and took off with her mother.

We checked over all the other heifers a second time before leaving the new mothers with their calves. Still unsure how those two managed to become bred, we are now watching the others in case they are somehow also expecting calves. The entire point of them being separated from the rest of the herd is to keep them from becoming pregnant until they are fully able to bear it – and the calves – successfully.

Our best guess is that they were bred before they were weaned, but we really don’t know.

Perhaps it was immaculate “cow-ception?”

All we know for sure is, among the other odd things that happened this week, this may be the strangest.