Cold Calves

The plan for our household this morning didn't go as planned.  Part of living on the farm.  Our middle daughter had a basketball game in a town 30 minutes away.  My hubs asked me to bring her to the farm and he would take her from there.  When we arrived at the farm where my hubs was checking cows he asked me if we had any colostrum.  Uh oh, that means we have a newborn calf in trouble.  He also said he was going to have to pull a calf.  The newborn calves took priority and we did not head to the game.  I headed home to mix up the colostrum in the tuber {esophageal feeder} and grabbed a couple more kids to come watch.

When I returned to the farm the heifer had her calf on her own so we didn't have to pull it.  The baby calves were so cold because the temperature was a whopping TWO degrees out.  You can see the steam coming off the wet baby calves when it is this cold.  Both of these new babies were born to first calf heifers {meaning they have never had a calf}.  First calf heifers can be kind of stupid because this is a new thing for them and they are not sure what to do {kind of like being a first time parent}.  If the heifer doesn't claim the calf we end up with a bucket calf.

My hubs decided to go ahead an tube both the new babies because the heifers didn't seem to be interested in the calves.

As soon as the older calf got some yummy in his tummy he stood up to discover the surroundings a little more.

Then the calf started walking around looking for his mommy.  His mommy was standing off in the distance and noticed the calf was up and moving around.

The other heifer took notice as well and headed back over to her newborn calf and started to lick the calf.  This is what is suppose to happen!!!  The mother cow licks the calf dry to help warm them up.

The other heifer finally decided to head over and take claim to her calf. 

 All is good!!!

{{{HUGS}}}

The Farmer's Wife