Farm Fresh Blog

Remember Paisley? 

 First time mother. Crackhead.

Paisley finally got with the program and figured out how to use her new cell phone (the baby). She is "relatively" attentive now. (unless groceries are concerned) Because her maternal instinct "finally" kicked in, we may keep her another season to see if her problems were just a first time mother thing. If she does it again next year, she's cut from the team though.

 The kid is doing fine but would like to play with the orphaned calf across the fence.

 But since it's not our calf, she had to wait until today for a playmate. 

This little guy was blessed enough to be born to Dancing Cow. She is the most experienced mamma on the ranch. (and would still give Secretariat a run for his money at meal time!)

So when Dancing Cow doesn't show up for breakfast, it's a good bet she has a calf.  Sure enough, we walk back there and find this little fellow.

Dancing Cow is attentive, but doesn't threaten to run me down.  (goooood cow!) So we hauled his momma some breakfast and checked out the new kid on the block. I was happy to see he was a bull calf. Bully's eyes have improved, but not enough for us to be able to keep him as a breeding bull. An untamed blind bull is dangerous, so some time in February, we'll have to butcher Bully.

  I hate to do it, because he's a great bull, but even a gentle bull is dangerous in this condition.  We have pulled him out of the pasture and he's living in the roping arena with a "seeing-eye cow" for a friend.  That's working out well, but there's no way we can return him to the pasture.

We are waiting to see what the bull calf crop looks like this year.  Last year Bully put some really nice bull calves on the ground and now we regret not keeping one as a back-up.

So this little guy may stay a while.  

At birth he's as big as Paisley's two week old calf.

  She is absolutely delighted to finally have a playmate.  He is less than excited to see her at the moment. One sniff and he decided that he'd better follow his momma instead of hang out with this rather forward "red-headed girl." She was most disappointed. Being the first born calf of the season sucks until the rest of the gang comes along.    

  "Will YOU play with me?"