There is just something alluring about the other side of the river when it comes to cows calving this year.
#50 Pente decided it was time to have her baby and she trouped across the river and down along the small field where she ended up only about a 1000 yards from where Shadow had her calf. #50 is one of the cows that had twins last year, so we were happy that she only delivered on this year.
We found the new family in the thick brush of the riparian zone. Pente had her head in a clump of blackberry briars and the baby was having a hard time fighting her way through all the brush, and she was hungry. We encouraged Pente to move out into the pasture and bumped the calf along to follow, but when Pente backed out of the briars, she had a twenty five foot loop of prickly vine wrapped around her neck and trailing along both sides of her. It was very discouraging for the calf when she tried to get close enough to nurse.
I kept the cow busy on the front end by talking to her and moving around while Mike snuck up from behind and grabbed one end of the briar with his gloves on. As she backed up, he was able to un-loop the tangle and get the whole thing off her. We were able to get the baby back up where she needed to be and before long there was a whole lot of smacking going on as she latched onto a teat.
After a couple of hours we moved the pair down to the crossing and again I had the privilege on climbing on top of the calf that we put on the pallet of the front loader and while Mike backed the tractor through the river. Pente was not pleased with the move and was quite noisy as we made our way across. The calf was much more active than the last baby we moved this way and it was all I could do to stay on the pallet and hold the calf from getting up and jumping off.
We got the baby and Pente to the nursery field where we fed hay for the cow while the baby nursed again. By the next feeding Pente had the baby mixed in with the rest of the cow/calf pairs in the field.
Welcome to the farm, Farkle (had to do it, it was a Farkle winter in this household, it has been our go-to evening wind-down. If you don’t know Farkle, grab six dice along with the rules on-line). Born 3/30/2021 weighing in at 71 lbs.
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