Baby BOOM! Calving Season

black angus calf

It's the Baby BOOM!

It is calving season around here and currently we have ten calves on the ground so far! It feels like a baby boom every year. 
Sometimes it feels like we are running a marathon tagging and weighing calves. It is also so rewarding to see our hard work come full circle after selecting the right genetics for our herd.
 
Our herd has been smooth sailing so far,  *knock on wood* but we are constantly running around making sure the cows about to calve are doing well and if they need help, we are there to do so. 
 
We weigh and tag each calf to collect data for our registered and commercial beef cattle. We do this so we can keep trends on cows and bulls and keep track on what they are producing.
bottle feeding a calf

Stepping in to help

Our number ONE priority on the ranch is the well-being of all our animals. We check our cattle several times a day when it is calving season, since it can be a wild time of the year for us.
We had one pair (mother cow and calf) who had a little bit of trouble. 
 
Our “Trendy” #211 cow had her bull calf on 3/9/23. We noticed that the calf was having some trouble latching onto mom. 
 
Her teats were so engorged, that we had to assist. So we brought in mom and baby to the corrals near out house and had mom in a chute so we could inspect her closer. 
 
We ended up just milking her and putting the milk into a bottle. There was still some colostrum in the milk. *Liquid GOLD*
 
Colostrum is the first milk that mothers of every species posses to pass on to their baby. It is full of antibodies specific to the region and for that baby. 
using a chute

Nursing 

After we bottle fed the calf, we reintroduced him back to his mom who was eating some beer grain in the chute. He went right for her teats that we a much more manageable size. 
 
We swapped him around to all four quadrants of the cows bag. Even with milking her by hand, she had quite a bit of milk left. Both the cow and calf seemed so much more relieved!
 
We kept the pair close to our house so we could still watch over them. Yesterday, we noticed the calf was swapping around nursing which was great!
 
There was one teat a little on the large side, so we went ahead and milk that one quadrant one more time before releasing them back to the herd.
 
Now, we are just monitoring them and will step in again if we feel we have to. We are hoping that the calf starts drinks more as he gets bigger. He is lively and vigorous though! He was prancing around as his mom grazed in the pasture. 
 
There isn't anything much cuter than a fresh baby calf!

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