Today was a long day, full of new farm experiences!
I started the day with Nigel about 7:30am - earlier than I've likely woken up in ages! We left the house on the 4 wheeler and headed down to check on the one year old ladies. These cows are just turning one now and were not used for breeding this year. They will be used next year. Moved them from one paddock to the next. The entire process was rather uneventful.
After than, we went over to the "earlies" paddock to see how many calves were in there and to tag them. We found 6 calves, 5 of which we easy to identify and tag, the last of which was not. When tagging the calves, it's important to know who the mother is, and this isn't always easy to tell. This is why we ended up leaving one of the calves untagged for the morning as we couldn't identify who the mother was.
After tagging the calves, we went over to check on the "lates," where we found one cow that had already given birth. Because she was standing with her calf quite far away from the others, it was very easy to tag the calf. After finding all the calves, we went to move the "earlies" from one paddock to another. Before moving them, however, we spread magnesium over the new grass. During their calving time, their bodies are not as good at producing and absorbing calcium and magnesium. If they do not get enough of these vitamins/minerals, their muscles will not work properly and they will become a "down cow." Once they are down (meaning they physically cannot stand up after sitting down), things aren't good. If they are down for more than a day, it means it's over for them. Thus, we spread magnesium to help prevent all of this. After doing that, we moved the "earlies" to their new paddock.
At this point, Nigel and Vicki started sorting out the calves and collecting them, I however, stayed back with the earlies to watch one of the cows as she was very close to giving birth. I sat there maybe 30-45 minutes but I was finally able to see the miracle of birth. Here's a video of the whole thing - fyi, it's about 10 minutes long. And about 8 minutes after being born the calf took it's first steps. Here's a video of that - this video is about 6 minutes long. After seeing all of this I can now skip the Miracle of Birth Center at the MN State Fair from now on.
After all this excitement we decided to take a break and have a morning tea. This was followed by lounging around the house, a trip into town, lunch, and a bit more relaxing.
In the afternoon, however, came more excitement. I went with Nigel to do the milking of the 30 or so milkers they currently have. Here's a video of me attaching the cups to one of the cow's udders. And here's a video of me drinking milk from a cow's teat.
At some point today I also helped one of the babies feed for the first time, number 12. Here's a video of that. Although you can't see too well in the video, every time I put my fingers near it's mouth/nose my finger is acting as a fake teat. You get the calf to suck on your finger like it would on a teat and then you guide it toward the teat with milk in it. It's quite precious, the whole process. Here's a video of that.
Okay, now I have spent a lot of time this evening organizing and working on my videos and I'm out of energy to write anything else of take any more time on this blog. More of the same tomorrow, likely won't be too many more videos while I'm here - as I did so much today - but maybe some pictures.
Best!
No comments:
Post a Comment