More Rain, More Calves

We often joke that we need a cold front to get the calving going or, when we do have a storm, that it will bring a bunch of calves.  I don't know if it's true, or if the weather just keeps us from getting to the pasture to check.  Whichever, we've had 2 inches of rain in the last 2 days and 3.5 in the last week.  Lots of mud in the lots and pens.  This afternoon was warm and sunny, so Kathy and I went to look for calves and found 6 new ones!  Now we have a total of 14.  They look nice, all clean and shiny against the green pasture.  It's a good time of year.

Calves In The Cold

Humped up against the rain, sleet and snow, here are a few of the calves.  Look close-the black ones are hard to see.  There are 8 now, 12 days into the calving season; 3 from the Hereford bull and 5 from the Angus.  I had hoped there would be more-like maybe 12-but I can't control everything and the bulls are obviously doing their jobs.  All the births have been natural and easy (easy for me, anyway).  Several more cows look close, so we'll just keep checking and counting.  This is one of our favorite times of year.

You can see that the rain and the mild winter so far have the pastures pretty green.  The grass is very short, but it must taste good and the cows are keeping their weight up despite less-than-stellar hay quality.  I have 30 bales of better hay I'm saving in case there isn't any grass or they start losing weight.  Once their calves are a month or 2 old it's hard for them to get enough food to make milk and get ready to re-breed and not lose some weight.  One of our native winter grasses is called Rescue Grass, since it comes at the exact time we need it to supplement their diets.

Burn

Yesterday we burned the brush pile of pushed mesquites in the pasture down toward Zane's.  I've been worried about burning but it was uneventful.  I plan to plow and re-sprig a few acres of bare soil where the Coastal has died out there, where I had piled the brush.  We'll have to keep after the re-emerging mesquites but the pasture is looking pretty good.

Calves

I put the bulls in with the cows last spring on April 25, a date carefully calculated to produce our first calf on February 1.  Apparently sweet number 925 is the only one who read the calendar, and gave us a little black bull calf that day.  The others have noticed, though.  When we checked for calves this afternoon there were 2 and a heifer at the house was beginning labor.  At 6:30 there were 3!  Here's 925 and her calf, after deciding I had nothing good to eat to offer them.

Here's the bull calf of Amy's heifer.  We watched him being born, cleaned up, urged to stand and eating his first meal.  I know birth should be a sufficient miracle in itself but it's such a common occurrence I guess we take it for granted.  But to watch a young heifer, who has never given birth or been instructed in it, deliver a calf, clean him up, get him standing, make him walk and show him how to nurse is nothing short of amazing.

Rain

After a few little sprinkles this winter, we got a nice 3.5 inch soaker last week.  Those of you who last saw the tank the size of a backyard swimming pool would be pleased to see it today, about half full.  Now we don't need to worry about the fish getting sunburned.