A steer acting as a 'midwife'?

[WalnutCrest]

This morning a heifer lays down to do her job for the first time.

An older steer comes over and sniffs her vulva. Then, he starts pushing on her belly with his head and moos at her repeatedly with a soft sort of moo. Then, he moves around to push on her back with his head. Then sniffs her vulva again. Then pushes on her belly again. Then moos at her some more. Then, about 10 minutes later, the calf comes out and he stands around looking triumphant.

The whole time my wife was just cringing at his behavior.

We're trying to decide whether or not there's a real future for this guy during calving season as a midwife, or if he's just a guy with no manners who needs to keep his date with the butcher.

 

[Muddy]

Sounds like he has no manners to me. I hate keeping yearlings with cows at calving time.

 

[Nesikep]

I find the yearlings a pest.. especially when it comes time for the calf to look for teats and there's all the yearlings around being too curious.. though if they're always around they do start to lose interest and it gets boring to them after a while, and the momma's are left alone with their calf.

 

[dun]

Some years back we had a heifer trying to calve and a yearling steer came up and kept pushing the calf back in whenever it's head would start to pop clear. I started hauling butt to get there to take of the issue and the heifer beat me to it. She stood up and butted him so hard he half lifted off the ground and rolled. He got the point. Heifer layed back down and popped out the calf the first time she tried.