randiliana
Well-known member
Well, calving season is wrapping up for our cows. We only have 5 left to go and they should be done by the end of April. It is a good feeling! It has been an interesting year too. We had over 90 calves in the first 15 days! 3 sets of twins alive, 2 unassisted. 2 C-sections out of heifers, that is quite unusual for us and they weren't exceptionally huge calves either. Fostered 5 calves, some onto cows that lost week old or older calves, all with no major problems. The first couple took to their new calves within 24 hours, the others within a couple days, didn't even have to break out the hobbles. Lost a calf to a cow with mastitis, those ones suck as you don't realize the problem til it is too late for the calf. Had 2 head back, 2 breech,2 leg back, 1 backwards and a couple upsidedown/not coming quite straight. Our very first cow to calve last year (immaculate conception) who calved on Feb 12 last year, calved today, kinda a slip up on her part! Lost a week old calf that fell into a big badger hole that collapsed in on him. So it has been an interesting go of it. Calved out more cows than ever this year, so that explains some of the extra grief. All in all a pretty good calving season, and can't complain when the steers outnumber the heifers 87 to 71!
OTOH, we are still custom calving some heifers out, and there are still about 20 of them to go, but we've had 66/85 in about 30 days. No big problems with them as far as calving goes, but we did have 2 over protective, and one hunter calve. The hunter will be going to town as we found someone that needed a calf and the other 2 may go this fall. And one with no milk too.
OTOH, we are still custom calving some heifers out, and there are still about 20 of them to go, but we've had 66/85 in about 30 days. No big problems with them as far as calving goes, but we did have 2 over protective, and one hunter calve. The hunter will be going to town as we found someone that needed a calf and the other 2 may go this fall. And one with no milk too.
