Night Calving

One of the joys of calving season is night calving. A lot of outfits put all the cows in pens (called lots) and check everything every two hours. We just keep the first calf heifers in a lot. Reason being, you never really know what you are gonna get with heifers. For the most part, these little gals squirt their baby out, jump up and start lickin', stand for him to get up and suck and act like they have done it all their lives. But then there are the others....THAT is the reason we keep them in to check.

Every so often you get a heifer that thinks it would be much easier to just take the calf somebody else just had. Can't say that I blame her for wanting to do that, but it makes my life a little more complicated. In this case, we need to get new mama and expectant mama separated as quickly as possible. On other occasions, childbirth is just too hard, so she quits pushing. Again, I have not ever given birth either to a calf or a human, so I can't blame her for this either. But it is in this case that I have to get her in the calving shed and "assist". (pull the calf...more on that later). Sometimes the birthing process goes as expected, but the rest of the agenda gets messed up. Maybe mama has a little too much "mama" in her and starts hitting the calf with her head every time he tries to get up. Sometimes they will pert near kill a calf like that. And in other cases, mama just says "to hell with it. I'm tired." and doesn't get up and take the calf at all. So Junior is up and looking for breakfast and mama hasn't fixed it yet. Then I have to get mama and Junior both in and help Junior nurse. Some cows really get touchy about you fondling those swollen "teats" (I call 'em tits, but I am trying to be politically correct here....) and Junior gets all stubborn and doesn't want you to hold his head up there where it goes. Fun for the whole family!!!

There are the times when something goes wrong with the birthing process. Calves can come backward, (tail first or feet first), have a foot back or down, or anything else you could probably imagine. We have to again, get the cow in and try to get the calf alive. If we catch them soon enough, we usually save them, but not always. It's part of the game, I guess. And then....there are prolapses. Without going into gory detail, suffice to say, it's messy. And a good share of the time the cow doesn't survive. Fortunately, prolapses are few and far between for us these days. Thank the Lord for that!!

On the nights when the wind is howling 30 mph(or worse) and the snow is hitting your face so hard it feels like needles piercing you and there are drifts knee deep or higher, or it is so dad-blamed cold that your eyelashes freeze together before you even get to the heifer lot....those are the nights when I try to talk myself into just staying in the house. Those nights when the herd is standing all bunched up, covered with so much snow you can't tell one cow from the next, the little babies scrunched in as close to mama as they can, just hangin' on til morning.....well, it isn't much fun for anybody, I guess.

But then there are the nights when it is calm and warm and the moon is glistening on the straw the cows and baby calves are bedded on. Everybody is sleeping peacefully or calmly chewing their cuds and nursing. I look up at the heavens and see all those beautiful stars twinkling in the sky. Those are the nights when I am thankful, grateful for my life and I feel a peace like no other time.