A day in the life, and quite the day it was today! The morning started by having a quiet breakfast with the boys while doing some laundry, making beds and updating the ranch calf book. My calf book goes everywhere with me this time of year!
We all got dressed and headed outside in the windy weather and arrived at the barn to my mom and dad putting a cow (7-47) in the cattle squeeze. She had been calving since 5am and it was now 8am and she was not progressing. Everything felt normal with 2 front feet and a head coming, so we let her out to give her some more time. The boys, my mom and I cleaned the barn and I processed the calf from yesterday, as we do each morning. This involves tagging, dehorning, giving 2 needles (selenium and vitamin A & D) and if it is a bull calf, sometimes castrating him. We then walked out to the field with all the cow/calf pairs and checked each calf to make sure he/she was healthy and checked each cow’s udder to make sure her teats are all getting nursed. Sometimes a cow may not allow her calf to nurse one or more teats as they may be sore and if that is the case, we will bring her in closer to the barn to monitor.
Next, we waited in our supply room to watch if 7-47 would start progressing further and finally decided that we must help her as she obviously was not “getting down to business”. Back into the squeeze and we assisted with the delivery a small bull calf. My first comment was “small… this cow never has a small calf”! We let 7-47 lick her calf for a few minutes and then decided to take them into the barn as the wind was very chilly. That was when things got interesting!! We had previously let a cow and calf into the barnyard who we are having to watch closely as the cow over the past couple years has been getting very protective of her calves. Needless to say we were trying to get the 7-47 and her calf into the barn while watching our backs! Both of my boys were sitting in the Chariot watching us from outside the barnyard pen. Our cows are usually very quiet, so this isn’t something we experience often! But suddenly we see more feet coming out of 7-47! Twins! So, back into the pen she goes. We put a halter on her while she is licking the bull calf and assisted with the delivery of the next calf, a heifer! Both calves were doing well but we decided to give them a bit of colostrum. The colostrum will help them get going faster in the cold, windy weather and then we can check them again when we get home from delivering beef. Even though 7-47 is 10 year old, she appeared mystified by the fact that she had 2 calves and not 1. After some difficulty, we give one calf colostrum and the other calf is starting to get up so he should be able to nurse on his own soon.
The boys, my mom and I quickly went home to change our clothes and pack the truck as we had to deliver some beef packages and ground beef to local customers in town at 2pm. I answered some emails and Facebook messages about Usborne books on our way out the door as I am an Independent Consultant with Usborne Books. We delivered the beef and went to get our side-by-side tire fixed while my dad stayed home to “babysit” the cow herd. Once we got home, it was time to check the twins again, make supper and put the boys to bed. I was lucky enough to stay in the house while my parents checked the cow herd and the twins. After supper, it started to snow so my parents quickly went back outside to put 7-47 into the barn. By the time 11pm rolled around, we had over 6 inches of snow on the ground.
Late nights have been catching up with me so I had a quick nap with the boys and then I worked on entering the daily ranch records into our Cattlemax program. Cattlemax is an online herd management software program that we use for our cattle records. I wrote this post, scheduled some Facebook posts for the next day and prepared my son’s homeschool curriculum ready for tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly so we can get some school done! Time for some sleep so I can be ready for another adventure filled day tomorrow.
