The phone beat the alarm this morning with the arrival of a bull calf. Today we had to be focused on calves, primarily getting hutches set and the calves out in them. By 11 a.m. it was already in the low 40's and sunny so while working outside it will feel like a heat wave! While milking itself seems like a no brainer these days, dealing with the special needs cows and calves is feeling like chaos. The cow count is: #28 looking good and eating well, just waiting for her drug withhold to be over. #55 must have heard we were calling the vet because this morning she is brighter and very interested in eating and pooping. Tune in tomorrow. #12, the most recent twins adventure may have actually cleaned (expelled both placenta's) but seems to have a quarter with a hint of mastitis so Bruce will treat her while her milk is already being held because she is too fresh. The fresh heifer has cleaned and was well behaved for a first ever milking. The cow that had the calf this morning, #23, has cleaned and seems fine. On the calf end of life I have bull calves on extra milk and the new one on a single bottle so far. I have heifers on everything from extra milk to a single bottle to half milk/half replacer. There are times that I just have to stop and think it through as to who gets what. In order to speed up the feeding process I have been warming the waste milk from the previous milking for the bull calves while we are still milking. Our water is heated to 180 degrees so I run a sink part full of water and then set 2 pails in it. It really doesn't take very long to warm so by the time Bruce is milking the "special" cows I have most of the bull calves fed. I am very glad the newest 4 calves, including the twins, have been good drinkers. Today we have a heifer calf with an unexplained belly ache but we have also decided the bull calf with infection in his joints is healing to the point he doesn't need antibiotics anymore. A loss and win.
It was an awesome day out there with 52 degrees and sun. There was water dripping everywhere and equipment thawing loose. Bruce spent nearly 2 hours in our manure spreader chopping. Bruce scrapes the spreader every day after he spreads his load but it still builds up 1/16 inch every day while it's freezing. Now that it has warmed up so fast the manure build up has come loose in big chunks, and if he didn't chop it up so its small enough to go through the auger and impeller it would bend everything. Needless to say, there was laundry to do! While he was doing that I was spending time in the barn tagging cattle and banding calves. The calves get an orange numbered tag when they are born. When they are cows in the barn they also get larger yellow tags with the stall number where they stand. Our cows always go to the same stanchion so tagging helps us help them find their stall when they start going out in spring. Last summer Joe pointed out that the orange tag is their "name" and the yellow tag is their "address". We still smile when we think of that since we had never thought of it that way before. Since we have moved staph aureus cows and sold quite a few we desperately need to get the details caught up. I also banded the bull calves that have come in recently. We have stanchions in their pen that I can catch them in. I use a bander and a rubber band that has been compared to a "green cheerio" and slip the band over the scrotum, making sure the band is between their testicles and their body. This cuts off the circulation and they just dry up and fall off. For some reason this information tends to make the males cringe (lol) but the calves are more disturbed by being caught and don't even notice once you let them go. It's painless, bloodless and in summer it avoids fly problems. It is also easy for me to do so it's one less job for Bruce. Doing this when they are small also eliminates any accidental breeding of heifers since they are raised in the same pens and pasture until they are big enough to start the steer finishing ration. While I was in the barn working I noticed that the heifer calf with the belly ache was laying way over on her side and beginning to bloat. I got her out to walk but she was obviously feeling miserable so when Bruce came he took a large syringe needle and poked it into her belly. He kept his ear close, listening to it as it hissed. When the air seemed to quit coming out she was noticeably more comfortable already. Tonight she was walking around. She doesn't look like she feels good but isn't bloated. I didn't feed her tonight but did put a coat on her and move her outside. It's so nice out there so I think she will like having more room and fresh air.
Bruce managed to dig our calf hutches out of the snow and get them set where they belong. He got a corn fodder stack for me to bed them with and tonight I have 3 calves moved out there and 2 more will go in the morning when I get the fences in place. Feeding already seemed to go smoother since the hutches have bottle holders. Once the calves figure out where the nipples are I just walk away and they can feed themselves. It was a very long day but we sure got alot done. Bruce announced at supper that it was going to be a "4 ibuprofen" night. I agree totally. Bruce sent a text to our daughter tonight... "52 and sunny. My brain says I have at least 6 weeks of winter yet. But today my soul could very faintly smell spring" ; )
I got that text message and I sure did like it!
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