Done With February Calves-Yipee!

Our day started with a phone call again.  Another bull calf has arrived.  When I arrived at the barn Bruce was just feeding cows so I started milking myself while he did that and got bedding down.  I was just doing what I needed to do and then suddenly realized another cow had feet sticking out.  A heifer calf, #899 was born before we were done milking.  That is the end of our February calvings!!!!!  The next calf is due March 9 and there are only 4 that month.  We are grateful that the last calvings were much less chaos than the earlier ones.  That leaves my current calf count at 8 heifers and 10 bulls to feed.  I will wean 4 the minute I can get them into the barn again.  With the grazing of cows our freshening of cattle has turned a bit more seasonal.  I had 2 calves in mid Sept. and 1 in late Dec.  I have to say, I got really spoiled with a break that long and this month has been just a bit intense keeping everything going.

Bruce spent the day plowing snow, this time to a barn at our neighboring place.  To this point we didn't have animals that needed to go down there but the barn here is full and its time to move some out.  We've put off using this barn mainly because its the least handy to use, having been remodeled from a dairy barn originally and then a beef barn.  It has low ceilings and the yard is steep. The other thing he did down there was check the fences to make sure they are all working.  We have another feed box available for this yard so Bruce also got that out from where it was parked and ready to go.  Since we are trying to get Ed's silo empty, getting animals down there on a feed box should also help. The feed box for the heifers here got filled today since the winds were cooperative. Bruce took milk cultures tonight so we can get everyone where they need to be and milking streamlined.  To do milk cultures we need a sterile milk sample. This is done by wearing new milking gloves and then scrubbing each teat with alcohol and individual gauze pads, paying special attention to getting the ends clean.  You then carefully squeeze some milk  out of each teat being careful not to touch the teat ends.  The cultures get done by our vet clinic and we should have results back before the weekend.