And the Calving Begins

scratching an itch

Calving season for 2016 has begun.

 

 

Mountain Glen’s first calf was born without incident on February 16^th.  As Glenn likes to say, the calf ‘hit the ground running’.  In other words, it was a fabulously successful birth. This first birth is on the early side, but then again, the heifers (young females who have not yet had a calf) were exposed to the bull sooner than the cows because their cycles are still more irregular than proven cows and they sometimes need the extra time, extra cycle to conceive.

 

The second calf was born on February 26th with quite a different scenario. 

 

The young heifer struggled for hours in labor.  Glenn decided it was time to intervene and called his expert help in time of crisis, Becky, over to help.  They walked the heifer up the hill into the barn lot and secured her in the head gate. 

 

What Glenn discovered was that the calf was not in the proper presentation for birth.  A calf is born head first with both front legs facing forward alongside the head.  This calf had one leg facing forward in the proper position and one leg bent backwards.  This calf was never going to proceed through the birth canal.  At this point, Glenn thought that the calf must be dead.  Still, the calf needed to be pulled out of the heifer.  Glenn donned a 24” long plastic glove and went in.  Glenn tied a rope to the backward facing leg and while he pushed the calf back in, Becky pulled on the rope to straighten the leg.  Once the leg was turned forward, the calf easily and instantaneously slid out with the next contraction.

 

Surprising, the calf was still alive and looked to be well considering its somewhat unconventional birth.

 

The heifer and calf were left alone to rest and to bond, but were looked in on from time to time.

 

Happily, mama and baby are just fine so they were able to rejoin their contemporaries within the day.  This heifer is a good mama.  She feeds her baby well and she watches over her baby as a decent mama does.  Yesterday, Snowball was curious and walked a bit too close to this calf.  The mama immediately chased Snowball back to a safe distance away from her baby.  That is what we like to observe from all our mothers…a firm dedication to protecting their young.

 

Two down (or should I say out) and 40 to go.