Long Night

It is amazing how God provides even through circumstances that don't initially seem very pleasant.  Last night was an excellent example.  We went out to check on an old Jersey cow last night (because we suspected she was going to calve).  Well, she got  the feet out and Danny was outside for an hour waiting on her to have this calf.  He told me later that he fell asleep in a pile of hay out in the pasture while waiting on her!

We ended up pulling the calf.  The calf was not that big and it was not that hard to pull the calf out (for those of you who don't know what this means--we encircle each of the calf's feet with chains that have handles attached to them and as the cow has a contraction, we physically pull on the handles (and thus the calf) as she is pushing to help her get the calf out).  She is an older cow and just a bit weak.  Her being a Jersey doesn't help matters (the Jersey breed tends to give up quicker and think that they have actually died when all they did was fall down...maybe they are related to the oppossum somewhere....).

So we got a live bull calf and as I was rubbing the bull calf dry (because the mama couldn't get up right away) Danny went and picked up another calf that another cow had just had.  As he was picking up that calf, he noticed ANOTHER cow calving.  By this time it was about 11:30 PM.  We were going to leave the third calf in the field if it was a bull and we would just deal with it in the morning...it was a heifer.

After Danny got the third calf in he went up to bed and I stayed to feed the last calf.  By the time I finally got up to the house it was 1 AM.  Danny let me sleep in until 7:45 when he needed my help feeding some of the calves.

So, we were able to get all of those calves in before they had a chance to drink off of their mamas.  That was a huge blessing.  Once the calves drink off of their mamas it is a royal PAIN to get them to drink a bottle.  It is just amazing to see how God blesses us amidst what seems like a sour circumstance. :)

Sorry, there are no pics of any of this.  It was dark and late.

Twins!

On the 17th my friend and I came back from taking the latest load of calves to my father-in-law's farm.  As we pulled into our farm, we saw Danny working on a cow in the head catch.  He saw her in the field trying to calve and thought something looked off.  Upon closer inspection he saw only one foot sticking out... But, when he was trying to rearrange the calf inside her he felt two heads...trying to make their way out at the same time--not good. 

He gave our vet's office a call.  To make a long story short, about an hour and ten minutes (it took 50 minutes for the vet to arrive) we were graced with these guys (yes our trend of bull calves continues).

Little Girl Blue

On the 7th of March I posted that we had 49 cows milking and 24 live heifer calves. 

On the 15th of March we have 95 cows milking and 40 live heifer calves. 

Yesterday evening, Danny came looking for me after chores were all done except for one new bull calf that he just brought in that needed to be fed.  Below is a picture of what he found.

So, to cherish the moment, my husband took a picture of me with his phone and sent it to all of his family members...feeling the love.  While I was sleeping, he did feed the last bull calf.  So, I can't complain :).  Love that man.

Seems that every time we take a load of calves to Danny's dad's farm the cows sense the emptiness of the pen and have a group effort to try and fill it back up.  Today we took 8 calves down, left three newborns at home and by the time we were done with chores two more had calved.  We are just thankful that they had them without needing our assistance. 

Blessings to you all (yawn) I think I will head to bed.  No telling how many new ones there will be to greet us in the morning.

Baby Girls in Their New Home

Here are some pictures of the girls in their new lodgings.  They are very much enjoying themselves, and besides treating some of the ones that had been at our farm in the bank barn for a week, they haven't had to treat any of the new ones!  The weather has been absolutely beautiful and that may be playing a part due to less stress on the calves.  Either way, we are glad to see them thriving instead of struggling along.

Lots of space and lots of light!

Dad converted his old holding pen into the calf shelter.  He would have put the calves in the old calf barn except the
snow piled on top of the calf barn two years ago and it collapsed.

Dad welded together some cool gates that fit nicely over the water trough so that two groups can reach one trought but
no babies get through...at least not through there.

One little baby fast asleep. :)

Dad and Nathan have been filling up the pens pretty fast and even though we are only halfway through March, we are finding ourselves building more pens to accomidate more calves, because the holding pen only holds 40.  We are up to 36 heifer calves as of this morning out of 90 cows.  We aren't quite up to 50% heifers, but we are grateful for this, because it is allowing us a little time to build more pens.  Even when something doesn't seem like a blessing from the outside, God can still use it for good.  Sometimes we just have to look at the situation from a different angle.

Blessings

Sick Babies

Well, sadly things don't always go the way we want them to go.  I am not writing this blog to give the glowing picture that we have everything right, because we don't.  I had a humbling week last week.  We had to ship all of our baby calves down to Danny's dad's farm to be raised.  We have struggled with calf health issues on this farm ever since we came here, and this year was looking to be worse than last year.  Last year we had calves that were spiking temperatures, breathing rapidly, had droopy ears, and if untreated, would quit eating.  Last year we first noticed it in some of our two-week old calves and had to medicate about half of our calves.  This year, I saw the same symptoms starting with a five day old calf, and when I saw her, I saw a few more who were looking suspicious.  So, we called up Danny's dad (who was only planning to take his calves this year) and told him that they would all be coming.  We hauled them out that night and we take the newborns over every day or so.

We are working with our vet to find out what on earth is going on and he has taken some blood samples and ruled out the possibility of inadequate colostrum (mama's first nutrient and antibody rich milk which gives calves a temporary immune system boost until they can build their own).  He has listened to their lungs and said it isn't starting out sounding like a respritory problem, but we are left scratching our heads.

We have a suspicion that it is largely due to to our bank barn (where we have been housing calves).  Why do we keep putting them in there?  Well, we were planning on only keeping them in there for a week this year--long enough to get a group together before we put them outside.  Unfortunately, they were getting sick even before we could do that.  Why put them in there at all?  We are working on that.  What it boils down to is that we aren't set up to put them somewhere else and we have to have a way to provide shelter for them in the rainy weather.  We aren't finacially in a place yet where we can afford to buy or make shelters for them so they can avoid the bank barn (being as this is only our third year in business).  So, this year we are hauling them to dad's.  I was really upset about it, because as much as raising calves wears me out, I love it. 

I will update with pictures of the babies in their new home soon.  Danny and I are upset and worn out by this somewhat unanswered issue, but we know that even in this God has a purpose and a plan.  We don't know what it is yet, and we are trying to be open and teachable to what lessons there are to be learned here, but we KNOW that HE has a plan and we will trust in Him to provide just as He already has by the fact that we DO have a place to take them to so they don't have to stay in a contaminated environment.  He does provide.  It may not always be in the way we would prefer, but our God DOES provide and we will rest in that and keep looking to Him.

The count.

We are up to 49 cows milking. 

25 baby heifer calves (1 born dead) so 24 live.

We have had to pull 8 calves so far.  Not what we would call a great ratio, but we are evaluating our herd records to see reasons and common links in the ones we have had to pull.  We have some ideas, but no proof.  We will plod on and take courage at these challenges that are excellent reminders to put our hope and trust in the Lord and not in things or people or our jobs, because they will let us down, they will dissappoint, but God has promised never to leave us nor forsake us and we will put our trust in Him and pray that with whatever you are facing--you will do the same.

Blessings to you all.