Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Anybody calving?

Nice looking young cow, and calf.

All mine were bought as bred heifers. This will be their third calf. Put an ear tag on the little sucker this morning, and we had quite a tussle. Never had a day old calf that strong, unless it's me getting old and weak.......which, come to think of it, could be it. I wanted to band him too, but could only find one nut. Since I have to do most of the work myself, I like to band them when they are small.

I say we have an 11 month calving season. That is because most years there will be a 30 day period when no calves are born. A new calf is welcome here anytime. Excepting keeper heifers we sell what is big enough in June and again about October.

Have had a few pop out already. One came yesterday smack dab in the middle of rain, ice, and wind. Momma took it off somewhere. All that was left was the afterbirth the dog puked up.

Jim

my family's farm started calving two days ago. Two down and about 105 more to go.

20 down and 25 or so to go. This rainy,wet, muddy weather isn't doing the little ones much good. A few crapping a little loose. Put in the barn on some dry hay and a little Rx and doing better though..

We've got 55 heifers to calve this year.

Anyone wanna start night shift here in a couple weeks?

Sam, I feel your pain. I wish you , and your father all the best. But, as Bugs Bunny might say, "This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me" (you) You are no stranger to keepin' the eye on the prize.

If I knew a single damned thing about it, I'd be there.

Ed

Yep.

First was a 2nd calf heifer. Calved one night when it was around -20. She did a great job. Took good care of him. We didn't bring him in or mess with him at all.

Had another calve way early on a very cold night. Was in a small building with some protection. Looks like she bumped her out onto the ice and she froze down. Working on grafting a calf on her right now. Got dang lucky to find a calf this time of year especially with this weather. Grafting is going just so-so. Cow isn't being mean or kicking, just not bonding yet.

If I was free, no problem. That would be a piece of cake. Fun to boot.

Decided we are going back to mid March calving after this year. I am home more then and we can do a good job with calving.

We just don't have the time to really tend well to our cows. Our cows do it on their own and when weather comes into play, our cows suffer or more correctly the calves suffer.

Richard, most of the time it takes longer to get dressed and drive out to the farm at 2AM than it does to actually check things over. Most of the time anyway....grin



ADPP, nothing to it until there's an 'issue' or two to deal with....!







Tarkio, what is a 2nd calf heifer?

How long ago was that calf born?


I hate finding newborn calves when it's down under -10F or lower. Takes a week or two to see the damage.

You are right though, if you're calving 10 you might as well be calving 100 because you still gotta get up and check.

And I don't like working at night and all the next day......

Hard to fall back asleep after waking up and going out into the fresh air!

A second calf heifer is a young cow/heifer, that has had her second calf.

I was assuming that but had never heard it phrased that way.

You're only a heifer once in this country....grin

I have not heard that in years Sam. My parents talked about plowing corn. That meant using a row crow cultivator. I still "pick" corn, that drives son Jake nuts, Every one else combines corn.

I use it that way because, in my mind, a heifer that had a calf is physically a "cow" then. But they're still not too savvy and pretty susceptible to doing dumb shlt so mentally they're still more like a heifer than a cow.

Sorry. I missed this reply last month.

I know all about Thedford. Spent many nights at the Roadside Inn. The RR doesn't bother me in the least. The truck stop has decent morning food. For supper, I can get by with the truck stop food also. Any more though, I try to pack homemade soup with me for evening meals so I don;t have to rely on others

I used to say in Hyannis regularly also. At least there were decent meal options there.

Again, i missed this one.

Been long ago enough, I had to pull ut my calendar to figure out which trip this was.

Trip was decent. Roads weren't too bad. It was wintery at the ranch. Lots of snow. Cold enough. But we got through it pretty well.