It’s that calving time of the year when I turn into a single mother for a few months 🙂
It is always lovely when the first calf arrives though, the first one is always special and even more so if it is a heifer as this year’s was. Dairy heifer calves are worth more than bulls from a dairy British Friesien herd plus it is nice to know that they will ?live for longer!
Cuddled up in the straw and fast asleep, here she is at less than 24 hours old. It may seem cruel but we remove the calves from their mothers after they have had the first colostrum (called beestings around here) which is all important for their immunity levels. They are then fed more colostrum by bucket for the first couple of days.
Why do we remove them from their mothers? Well, dairy cows have been bred to give a considerable amount of milk and a good dairy cow would probably give enough to suckle more than 4 calves so it doesn’t make economic sense to leave them with her. Suckler cows ( produce a calf for the factory) tend to have less milk but are much meatier and their calves will grow much stronger more quickly having a meatier build and also having access to milk whenever they wish rather than just twice a day.
Twin calves were born the other night, one male and one female. ? The female will most likely be what is called a freemartin in that she will be infertile so will not enter the herd but will be fattened for the factory. The testosterone from the male calf in the womb affects her hormone levels and renders her infertile. We once had a female twin to a male that Brian noticed bulling (on heat) and to date, she has had 2 calves but it is rare.
The female twin is a beautiful dark red and white with her brother being black and white. She was a little weak so Brian put her under an infra red lamp for 36 hours and gave her small feeds regularly. I was out in the yard when he was moving her to the calf shed and I was interested to see if she and her brother would recognise each other, would that connection from the womb still be there?
It was. The other calf in the pen ignored her but her brother came
over and they stood side by side, taking it in turns to rest their heads across each other’s back. Go on, say it ….. aaaaahhhhh. It just shows the bond is there from their tangling of limbs while in the womb.
We have two twin cows in the herd (twin heifer calves really is a bonus) and they always stand close together in the field, still having that familial connection.
All things nice...
Lorna,
Thanks for the good insight into farming. I will have to get Hubbie to be to teach me some stuff about the farm. He is a dairy farmer. I’m looking forward to the longer days so I can get out for the milking in the evening after work. Love the photographs the little calves are so cute. I will have to watch out and get to know the twins on the farm now and see how they react to the others.
All things nice…
Donna OShaughnessy
Hello again Lorna. I thought about you again today and then took it a bit further. I blogged about you in the e-zine The Renegade Farmer. I am one of their Freelance writers. I was so impressed with your post about WHY farmers should blog, that I added my two American cents worth to your thoughts. I hope you don’t mind that I have now made you famous in America! You can see my post here http://www.therenegadefarmer.com/2012/02/why-farmers-must-blog.html and on my own blog as well. Thanks for all you are doing for us family famers!
Lorna
oooh, thank you Donna, I will check that out and thank you so much for including me. I wish I could get our Farmers Journal to do something on encouraging farmers to blog, so many are isolated etc plus it would be a great advertisement for our products.
Donna OShaughnessy
We too own a dairy here in Illinois and as a rule take the calves away after 24 hours. Lately though, after a bout of cocidiosis we learned one way to boost the babes immune system was to leave them with mama longer, Makes sense, I nurses my own babies for the same reason. But because the cows milk is one pasrt of our livelihood (we sell it all direct to customers who come to the farm) we don’t leave them with mama very long. I love doing all the bottle feeding with them until they reach about2 months and get too aggressive with me, then the love is gone between us 🙂
Lorna
We have a huge Raw Milk debate over here at the mo, regarding making it illegal to sell it – gov going to make it illegal. It’s been out of the media for a while now but …… do you pasteurise yours or sell it raw?
It is amazing how quickly the calves grow and how quickly they become boisterous! I have been known to swear quite a bit whilst feeding calves 😉
Colette
I am enjoying your posts on life with the Cattle. I love learning more about how life on the farm really works. Lovely post, and, as especially like the twin-calf photos, so sweet 🙂
Lorna
Thanks Colette I’m really enjoying blogging about the farm, it was on my to-do list for ages so great to hear others are enjoying reading them
Marie Ennis-O'Connor (@JBBC)
Aw Lorna..how sweet
M?na Wise
Ah .. How cute! I love that photo Lorna xx
And I love learning about this way of life from your stories xx
See you Monday!
Lorna
Looking forward to seeing you xx
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