The Little Ones

Calving season ended a few weeks ago, with the last two heifers deciding to give birth on the same bitterly cold night. The brown heifer's calf was a big strong bull, who somehow slipped through the fence overnight and we found him in the next paddock, lost and hungry but still feisty. Unfortunately the other heifer had to have some vet assistance with hers the following morning, and her beautiful heifer calf was stillborn. I'm thankful that the poor mother did not show any sign of concern for her baby though. She was quite content to walk back to the paddock with the brown heifer and leave her dead calf. It breaks my heart when they are upset about it.

The last of the babies went out to the paddock last week, the same day that we had a surprise birth in the milking herd. A very sweet, gentle Jersey heifer calf. Her mother didn't care for her at all and left her behind in the paddock. We put the little one in the shed and fed her the important colostrum we took from her mother. She now has a friend in the pen with her, an older "brownie heifer" who's come back for treatment of mild scours. 

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We had last weekend off, and Skuggi got to come with me to the mall for some training. He did so well! Yesterday we finally braved Woolworths as well which he also did amazing with. I'm so excited about working with him and seeing what adventures we have in the future.

For All Of The Innocent Things

There's a lot to catch up on. Since we moved here, it's been absolutely hectic. It's been 80% hard work, 15% sad moments, and 5% things turning out right. 

The night we moved out here, we found a possum had fallen through a vent in the ceiling and was now living in the kitchen. He'd made quite a mess in the house but wasn't all that keen on coming outside again. I'm not sure how long he'd been in there. But we got him to come out the door eventually.

We had to get someone else to transport our calves in a stock truck, because our vehicles just aren't strong enough to tow a trailer big enough for them (aside from the bus, but it has no towbar). The calves all did surprisingly good and have settled into their new home nicely.

I was given the job of calf rearer, and I'm rearing 104 calves. We weren't told until we accepted the job that they had an outbreak of "Cryptosporidiosis," a parasitical infection that causes diarrhea in calves, resistant to the usual treatment. All that can be done is get a good amount of colostrum into them as soon as possible, and try to keep them hydrated while it runs its course. We lost one little brown heifer in the second week. She was never quite right, from the day she came into the shed, and although for a little while it looked like she'd pull through, she went downhill again so fast.

We lost some cows too. Late nights trying everything to keep them alive, but sometimes they just lie down and give up. They were old and they were tired.

We came out late one night to check the pregnant cows and found one that had a baby already on the ground and another being born. Twin calves are incredibly rare, so it was amazing to see. Both babies were big and strong, and they got named "Barf" and "Belch" after the two-headed dragon in How To Train Your Dragon.

We've only got 19 calves left in the shed now. Everyone else is strong enough to go into the paddocks. There's only three cows left to calve, and none of their babies we'll be rearing. It's hard saying goodbye to those little ones, most whose only fault is they were born too late in the season. 

I've got my special babies, the little ones I find myself getting attached to more than the others. Nim, a Friesian calf with an underbite, and Bexa, a tiny Jersey who acts dramatically offended at being "booped" on the nose. They've learned to accept love from humans, learned how to play with me, losing that fear they all had when we first arrived.

This is dairy farming. This is calving season. You lose calves, you lose cows. You can fight with everything you have and still not win. But in some moments of rare calm, watching the little calves bouncing around their pens, the ones who I thought we'd lose, it doesn't seem so hard.