Babysitting question

[Grandpa]

Have always been amazed how one cow, or sometimes even a bull, will babysit all the calves while the others graze. My question (maybe silly) is does anyone know how they select the babysitter of the day? I have seen it turn to 2 cows when there are more than 7 or 8 calves (cows can count?). Neighbor says one kind of volunteers. Ok, but how do the others know she volunteered? Or did she get "elected"? Gotta be some kind of communication going on, you would think. Cows are just going to do this; I have just always been curious. Dad never had an answer for it.

On a side note, my daughter has 2 horses on the place. Last year the 2-year-old filly tried to adopt one of the calves. Mama cow got pretty mad when the calf couldn't decide who to stay with. :lol:

 

[haase]

Maybe they draw straws.

 

[Grandpa]

Aaah, that must be it. Turn my back on the hay ring for one second and what happens... :lol2:

 

[dun]

One just usaully settles down and the calves lay around. The other cows wander off and that's about it. I noticed in the past that with the cows it's rarely the boss cow, now with her getting up in years she seems to do it a lot lately. I wonder if it's just the last cow to get up that gets stuck with the job by default

 

[dcara]

Once I saw a heifer that was baby sitting get up and start walking toward the herd that was only about 500 ft away. One of the mamas left the herd, met the heifer halfway and knocked the heifer around a couple of times before the heifer went back to the calves. That was the only time I had ever seen that happen. Another time I saw my bull sleeping and about 10 calves just went over and laid down around him for a nap. An hour or so later I saw him standing there with the calves still asleep and the herd no where in sight.

When I wean calves, I have found that if I take one heifer (or other I have seen baby sit) with about every 7-10 calves then the calves don't holler much at all. After 3-4 days I take the heifer back and the calves are fine. This make a big difference to me because I liked to wean calves in a pasture about 500ft from the house.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Yall are over thinking this. Grass in front of the cow, bull behind the rest is simple.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Yall are over thinking this. Grass in front of the cow, bull behind the rest is simple.

You're over simplifying this. There should be a half dozen acronyms for important sounding terminology for the same old boring attributes, in your statement above. Keeping it simple mitigates the attempts for all these cattle associations that make our jobs important.

By the way, did I shut that gate when we came out of the upper pasture?

 

[dun]

Cracked me up yesterday when one of the heifers that's due in the next week or so was babysitting. A couple of the calves decided to play king of the mountain and she was the mountain. She just layed there and let them climb and jump all over her. Maybe she learned patience from Granny since she was the adopted twin that she raised.

 

[bigbull338]

we have a bunch of calves on the ground right now.an ive seen 1 or 2 of the cows stay close to 6 or 8 calves babysitting them.i counted 12 or 15 babies the other day under 3 months old.

 

[MistyMorning]

Yall are over thinking this. Grass in front of the cow, bull behind the rest is simple.

Oversimplifying maybe, but it's just that kinda thinking that makes this job fun.

 

[backhoeboogie]

You're gonna have to splain that "fun" thing to me. If it don't come a serious rain soon, I am in real trouble.

 

[snickers]

i think it's who ever is lowest on the totem pole are closer to the bottom of the pecking order.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

I don't know, but every now and then my old gelding (who's in with 'the herd' since his companion died) gets the job of being the 'sitter'. Most times he's right there with the cows, then other times he's with the calves without a cow in sight and he just grazes or naps right there with the calves.

Katherine

 

[Grandpa]

I'm not over-thinking; I know they're cows. Simply put, they do that because God made them that way. I get that. This evening I drove out to the pasture to check on the 2 calves and mamas (8 more are due pretty quick). The more docile of the two has been doing most of the babysitting and was standing with the other cow's calf, but I couldn't see hers. I drove up a little closer and saw her calf lying down about 50 yards away from her. When I drove up, the other mama ran to cut me off (not unusual), but not from her calf, from the other one that was lying down alone. I know this has nothing to do with what price I will get when I sell, but am I the only one that marvels at this? I know if we all had our kids at the mall (assuming we still had small children), none of us would just wander off and assume our kids were taken care of by the most timid mom there without some kind of communication.

 

[dun]

I know if we all had our kids at the mall (assuming we still had small children), none of us would just wander off and assume our kids were taken care of by the most timid mom there without some kind of communication.

Sadly I think that a lot of poeple don;t pay any attention to where or what their kids are doing.