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18 Aug 2008 10:58 PM

I have never understood why Mrs Oth's brother arrives every November with
a bull or 2 in the back of his cattle truck. Well I know WHY, but why Nov.?
As with humans, the gestation period of cattle is 9 months, which equates
to the first calves being due July - shortest days & coldest month, except
this year - August takes the prize (so far) And as they cycle every 28 days,
that gives 9 weeks of both hope & concern - did he work out what goes where?
& why? (Stolen from "The Silver Streak") being the hope, concern for easy
deliveries  - always justified.
We have 22 heifers, notorious as problems, naturally, but with little feed prior
to delivery, large calves shouldn't be the problem; however we have lost 2 so
far, big buggers too.
Thus it was with trepidation we noted, whilst feeding, a heifer on her own.
Pic 1 shows why, is that a clump of grass behind her?
Quietly approaching her head on, no! a calf, but something was wrong.
The birth membrane had dried over his nose, & she was not quite delivered,
2 hind legs being still inside. Hmmmmm - a problem? not so - on approaching,
she got up, & gravity worked! Quickly peeling the dried gunk off his nose, he
breathed easily straight away. Now the tricky bit - heifers can be flighty, & if
she bolted - hard to get her to mother up. Gently does it - quietly stepping back
& covering her escape route she settled, & after a bit decided to check out
what the fuss was about.
"Did that come out of me?"  - the birth sac must aid in identifying by odour the
fact that the calf is hers, as a few sniffs & long licks later we looked to have a
bonding! (Pic 4 )  Well good girl, that saves a deal of effort.
Happy with that relatively easy success we then fed the cows - still potential
problems, but these girls are old hands. But as there was a silver lining,
there had to be a black cloud - one of the older cows - prolapse.
One can spend upwards of $500 getting a vet to try with no surety of success
a procedure, & she was in obvious distress. At least we can relieve suffering
of animals, humans must resort to medicine to prolong it.
So we had a win & a loss - that's farming.

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