Got Milk?

Got Milk?

We have had two little calves with milk mustaches in the calving barn so far this calving season. Both of them were twins - though not the same set.

In each, their mamas chose the other sibling and rejected these sweet little faces. But they were awfully cute in our book!

So these little cuties spent a few days at the Red Roof Inn (aka - the calving shed).

The little red heifer and her brother were the first ones born this year at what we call the "round top."

The mama in the photo above was interested in the little calf, but it wasn't hers. The photo collage below shows the red calf's mama and sibling.

When I was talking about the situation in town, someone said that the cow must not be a very good mama. However, she was very protective of the other calf. When I got a little too close, she started pawing the ground. I backed up and used the zoom on my camera.

Eventually, she led the calf away from the annoying human.

We brought her red calf to the calving shed.

It didn't take long for it to become Randy's shadow. Being fed is sure to forge friendships, don't you think?

As a human mom, you can't imagine loving one baby more than another. But maybe in the animal world, it's a survival thing. While a mama can successfully nurse two babies, they often choose just one. It does offer more milk to the remaining calf.

We called the Extension Office to offer the calf to a 4-Her at a reduced price. But there were no takers. 

So the little red calf went to the sale barn.

Randy ended up carrying it to a pen. It would have been a long walk otherwise. We hope it went to a 4-H family, but we don't know.

The day after we took the red calf to the sale barn, another set of twins was born. This time, we brought one of the two black calves back to the calving shed for its gourmet banquet of milk via a bottle.

Randy had planned to take it to the sale barn in Hutchinson, but a neighbor ended up buying it to bottle-feed. By the time the black heifer left the County Line, she was an expert bottle connoisseur.

Randy had trouble getting out the door because it wanted to follow him everywhere.

I'd like to end the story there. Everyone loves a happy ending, after all. But reality doesn't always have a pretty red bow tying up a beautiful package. Last week, we found the black/white face calf at the round top half eaten by coyotes. Randy isn't sure whether the calf died and the coyotes drug it off or whether it was attacked by a coyote and killed. Even if we'd still had the red calf, the mother likely wouldn't have accepted it back again.

And on February 7, we had an expensive day. Randy noticed a cow in the pasture having trouble with calving. Randy tried to pull the calf himself but wasn't having any luck. He called the veterinarian, who came and pulled the calf, which was dead. Then Dr. Dick discovered it was a twin, which also was dead. Not a good day!

Since I don't want to end on such a sad note, I'll show a happier birth.

 

Life - and yes, death - are part of our farming story. 

Double Trouble?

Two for the price of one?
Double the fun?
Double trouble?

Even though you'd think that twins would be a good thing, it isn't always in the calving world. Sometimes, the cow doesn't have enough milk for two babies. She may not claim both offspring. Also, if one calf is a boy and one is a girl, the female is more likely to be infertile, a condition called "freemartinism."

Cow R47 gave birth to two bouncing boys.  (Forgive the poor photo at the top of this post. Randy got in a hurry to give eartags to the calves. What was he thinking? Work got in the way of my photo op - ha!)

The calf who was up and around with its mom ended up with tag No. 741.

The mom moved it away from we pesky humans.

Its brother, No. 740, stayed behind, hunkered down into the dried grasses.

Then, the next day, we had a heifer - No. 556 - lose a calf.

So Randy brought one of the twins - No. 740 - to the calving shed to try to get the heifer to claim the calf. Even though the white-faced heifer had been bawling for its lost calf, it didn't claim the new baby right away.

However, after a couple of days, it appeared that the heifer and the twin calf were getting along. Little 740 calf looked healthy, so Randy turned them both out with the other heifers and their offspring.

Once out of the pen, the mama wasn't as generous. It was back to pushing the baby away when it tried to nurse. But another mama allowed the baby to steal a drink while its baby stood patiently aside. (See photo below.)

That earned heifer No. 556 another trip to a smaller pen to see if she would have "an attitude adjustment." Sometimes it works for toddlers and teenagers, right?!

The conclusion?  No. 556 is not going to win the Mother of the Year Award. But several other heifers seem to have "adopted" the calf and don't mind sharing the wealth - in this case, the mother's milk - with an interloper.

You've heard the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." In this case, it's taking a corral of heifers to raise No. 740. 

Hoping for a Fairytale Ending

This little twin went to market. So did his brother. Not all stories on a farm have a fairytale ending.

But in my mind this morning, I thought about a little 4-Her getting up before school to bottle feed a bucket calf. Maybe Little 649 has a new name now, a real name. Maybe a little pony-tailed girl measured out the milk powder, added water and about got knocked over as the little calf eagerly had his breakfast. She gave him a pat and headed back to the house for her own breakfast before the school bus arrived.

Maybe at another farmyard, a little boy pulled on his manure-covered boots and headed out to a pen to feed No. 648. He called him by a new name and laughed as the calf eagerly slurped down a bottle.

Well, that's the story in my mind, anyway.

On a Facebook post on February 4, I wrote: "Double the pleasure. It looks like the mama will claim both bull calves born today."

 

And she did. Both babies were being fed, but then the mama started going downhill. Last Wednesday night, after we got home from taking Kinley and Brooke back to their mama, Randy and I had a nighttime mission.

I don't recommend loading cattle in the dark, if you can help it. I shone a flashlight on the barn door to help guide Randy backwards. After a few attempts, we were lined up right. Then, our flashlight beams hit a grisly sight - a dead coyote along the lane in the barn where the cow would need to walk. That was enough to spook man or beast, so Randy got rid of it.

The poor mama was confused by these crazy humans trying to get her to go into a trailer in the dark. It took several attempts. It was equally challenging to load the babies in the back of the trailer, and Randy ended up carrying both of them.


The taillights on the trailer wouldn't work, so we couldn't take the cow anywhere at night. The next morning, she was dead. So Randy took the two little calves to the sale. And there is where my fantasy story commenced. I am hoping that two 4-Hers will be caring for the calves and using them as a bucket calf project for a county fair this summer. I can picture those 4-Hers in my mind because both Jill and Brent loved the bucket calf project.

A page from Brent's 4-H book

We didn't get a check from Pratt Livestock in the mail on Saturday. With the President's Day holiday today, we won't know until Tuesday how much the little calves brought at the sale. But I hope they'll become "priceless" to a couple of 4-Hers. At least, that's how the story goes in my mind.

And a page from Jill's 4-H record book

Seeing Double?

Randy has been seeing double in the cattle pastures and corrals. But he just might need glasses. (It's usually me whose eyesight is sketchy.)

One day, he called the house and told me there was a set of twins in the heifer corrals. To help them bond, he fastened the gate and left the two babies to nurse with the mama while he went to check other locations.

I decided to go out and document the arrival of the first set of twins for 2015. But, when the calves quit nursing and turned toward me, I made a discovery. I called my Farmer.

"Ummmm ... Did one of the calves come ready-made with an ear tag? I teased him.

It seems little No. 507 was an interloper, eating an afternoon snack from a substitute mama. She obliged. Sometimes, mamas aren't so accommodating, especially heifers. 

But it's this little baby - her "blood" - that later got the loves and nuzzles.

We had another "twin sighting" in the pasture south of our house. Randy saw two calves with very similar facial markings hanging around a mama.

 

We sat in the pickup and watched the trio for awhile. And, on closer inspection, one calf was larger than the other. And the mama definitely preferred the smaller calf and head-butted the other one away when he tried to nurse.

This pair "matched up" and the other calf eventually found its way back to its real mother. 

I must agree with Randy: The calves had more "family resemblance" with one another than with the mama. (The photo below shows the interloper.) See? The two babies could definitely be siblings.

But, if you're about to lose confidence in Randy's cattleman status, we did have a true set of twins.
However, as sometimes happens with twins, the heifer mama claimed one and didn't want to have anything to do with the other.

The claimed calf got the No. 515 ear tag.

Little No. 516 was racing around, trying to scavenge milk from different mamas. So No. 516 went to live with a Corn Valley 4-Her. Katie will give it a good home and then use it for a 4-H project. (Unfortunately, I was at a meeting when Katie and her family came to pick up the calf, so there are no photos of the introduction.)

Katie got a good price on a baby calf, and Randy didn't have to mess with bottle feeding an orphan. It was a win-win.

And his cattleman reputation remains intact - despite some unwarranted twin sightings. Big foot sightings? Crop circles? Alien landings? Nope, here on the County Line, we have twin sightings.