Calf

Yesterday was my birthday, and the day started out with a great surprise birthday present. It really was not a total surprise. We have been expecting a calf for several weeks now, and it arrived early in the morning on my birthday.

Being new to animal husbandry we waited longer than we should have before introducing Rose, our dairy shorthorn, to a bull last winter. Our neighbor was very generous and brought his black angus bull over to visit Rose in our field. We kept him here for a couple of months to make sure that there was plenty of time for Rose to become pregnant.

We probably were not as vigilant, or nosy as we should have been. We probably should have calculated the number of days in the pregnancy better than we did. We dried Rose up in the beginning of August to let her build up her strength and fatten up a bit. We were expecting Rose to calve around the last week of September. The September date came and went. We thought she looked plenty fat, but this was our first time doing this so what did we know?

We started getting worried around the middle of October. She was fat but still no calf. We started thinking she might not really be pregnant. We asked our neighbor who owns and runs a dairy to come take a look at Rose. He taught us how to “bump” Rose and Tani and I were able to actually feel the calf! It was pretty neat to learn how to test to see if she was pregnant, and it was a relief to be able to stop wondering if there was going to be a calf.

Here we are a few weeks later with a cute little heifer, and both mother and calf are nice and healthy. We are looking forward to milking again. Fresh milk, home made butter, yogurt and cheese! What a great birthday present.