Calving when is dark and cold.

[thistlebloom]

Very nice Valley! Congratulations on your beautiful new additions, and good job to your girls!

 

[journey11]

Jerseys have great looking eyes!

Beautiful little thing!

Your girls are very diligent and devoted to their work. So good to see young folks these days in possession of those rare qualities.

 

[canesisters]

Congrats!!! Is it a male or female? PRETTY little thing.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

So purdy! And what good stable mates you've got helping those babies!

I've noticed that we've got a few new youngun's here around us, off highway 4. But there is no snow at our 1300 ft elevation.

 

[baymule]

Look at that snow! And you are right, they always pick the coldest, rainiest, snowiest, nastiest weather. AAAAAANNNNDDDD........they WAIT until you give up, stumble off to bed, and THEN they give birth. Beautiful calf, you have great girls that care so much for the animals entrusted to their care.

 

[bobm]

When I was a Jr. in High School, I worked at UCD Animal Science Dept. with dwarf cattle. UCD sits on 3,000 acres of lands. Over Christmas vacation, everyone including the Vets ( my parents [dad was a Vet.] were out of town ) were out of town or attending to emergencies but yours truly had to be there to feed the cattle, and handle everything that needed to be done. It rained like fighting cats and dogs for 3 days , so floods and mud everywhere. Getting into the pastures was next to impossible other then on foot in rain coat and rubber boots. One fully grown 700 lb. , 4 year old, dwarf hereford cow decided to have her calf early on Christmas Morning in farthest corner of the pasture up against a barb wire fence. Calf's front legs and nose was protruding, but she couldn't conplete the birth process as the calf's shoulders couldn't pass the birth canal. I called every Vet. working on campass ...NO LUCK. Raining the afore mentioned cats and dogs, freezing cold, mud everythwere, tractor stuck in the mud. So , I got a come- a - long , waded the pastures, cow now down near the fence, so I tied her to one fence post and the come-a- long to another and tied a chain to the calf's leg and started to pull it out. No luck for what seemed like hours but eventually pulled it out. Calf was alive and I rubbed it with a gunny sac untill it finally stood up/ All were soaking wet and shivering including me. Cow won't get up. Mid morning I finally reached the farm equipment foreman and he braught a caterpillar tractor with a flat bed trailer and drove it to the cow and calf. We had to bring another larger come- a - long to load the cow and calf onto the trailer. We drove to the barn, to get them out the rain, but left the cow on the trailer as she couldn't get up and had to make arangements to haul her to the large animal hospital over a mile away. We arrived there 3 hours later. Calf weighed in at 103 lbs. , the dwarf cow was paralized and had to be put down. Such is life when working with livestock.

 

[valley ranch]

The oldest is a bull calf, 6 days, the last born was a heifer.

 

[Smart Red]

Great news, @valley ranch! The babies look precious. Your farm family is growing nicely.

 

[ducks4you]

Horses do the same things, foaling outside in the muddiest turnout, in the middle of the night, so that you worry.