AND SO IT BEGINS

It's that time of year when we start calving our heifers.   Getting these little critters on the ground alive is sometimes a challenge.

Unfortunalty it has started out a little rough.  This poor heifer was having a hard time having her calf so Clay put her in the corral so we could pull the calf.  It was coming backward.  

This little guy was struggling to breath and sometimes even with our best efforts we lose them. It always makes us sad.

This is how it's supposed to happen.  

We finally got some healthy calves on the ground.
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This heifer lost her calf so we wanted to put her in the corral to see if we could graft a twin from another heifer onto her.  She was really ornery.  Dave had to really work hard to get her into a corral.

It took him a while but he did finally succeed.  She was really upset so we let her calm down until this morning.  We fed the calf and kept it warm.  We put them together this morning and it seems to be working.  Yay

Today it decided to snow, again.   This always complicates an already hectic time. 

Once again we had a heifer with a backward calf.  They generally have a hard time having the calves that are backward.  We AI, (artificially inseminate), these heifers and I always joke with Dave that he should put them in forward and only one per cow.  He just chuckles at me.

Goucho did a good job again. 

Upside down feet, an indication of the calf being backward.  But there are two feet out. That is a good thing. 

Our friend Brian comes and helps out regularly.  It gives me a chance to take pictures or get other things done at home.  

It got a little messy, but this baby lived.  Mom was a little crazy and the calf got a little cold, so we took it inside to feed it and warm it up.

When they don't get up and going pretty quickly they can get cold.  So we try to get colostrum in them as soon as we can and warm them up.  I am tube feeding it here. 

This baby will be ok.  Hopefully it's mom will calm down a little before we take it back to her.

It just keeps snowing. 

Visibility was getting pretty poor.

These babies are going to need to be tough to survive the up coming week.  It's supposed to be cold and snowy.