On March 9 we took care of the cows in the morning, and since Brooke's udder was looking pretty tight (a sign that calving usually isn't far away), I went back up to check on her in the afternoon. As I walked down the hill I could see she was off by herself in the middle of the leftovers from a round bale the cows had just consumed the day before. I figured she was either going to have her calf soon or she already had, but I couldn't see anything from where I was. She would put her head down but I couldn't tell from a distance whether she was eating hay or licking something.
As I got close, I realized she had already had the calf. And I was amazed to see that it was alive! She looked fully developed, but she was the little bittiest thing! Somehow Brooke's breeding date must have been off, because she had to have been at least 3 weeks early based on when I turned the bulls in, but since the calf was alive and developed she surely wouldn't have been 5 weeks early. Still slightly damp and shivering a bit, I rubbed her a bit with some hay while mama looked on and mooed at me. I called Dad and asked him to get some colostrum thawed out and warmed so we could get some milk in her right away. We fed her on the bottle, and she was able to get up and start walking around. She couldn't have weighed much more than 20 lbs, and only came up to my knee (I'm not tall). We left her with her mama for a few hours and then Mom and Dad brought her home that evening so she didn't wander across the fence into the trees and the opportunistic jaws of a coyote. We bottle fed her for the next 4 days until all the cows came home. I was hoping Brooke would remember her baby and take her back. After the cattle drive, I let the baby follow me out into the pasture. All the cows nearby had to come over and smell her, as if to say, "Where did you come from?" or maybe "What is that?" As we rounded the corner Brooke was standing there contentedly chewing her cud, and when she saw what was with me, her head popped up and her ears perked up. I think her actions said, "Hey, that looks familiar...is that what I think it is?" After she smelled the baby, she mooed at it a little bit, and I knew all would be fine.
All this time I've been trying to decide on a name that fits the calf. The babies have the same first letter to their name as the mama so it's easier to keep track of cow families. I kept calling her Little Bit, but I already have a cow named Bitty (who was also very small when she was born) and I call her Little Bitty. I thought Bit might be a little confusing (although not as confusing as the time when we had two Natalies...when I was away in college the rest of the family did more of the naming and didn't know we already had one). So, without further ado, I introduce to you the first calf of 2010... Butternut!
She's already growing fast thanks to Brooke's good mothering. And later this week she'll probably start having lots of little buddies joining her, since there are several cows showing signs that they're getting closer to calving...on schedule!So we are officially back in the milking business, and looking forward to another adventurous production season!
