The calves are here…

Since at least 1999, it’s been a tight schedule. Get back from “NCBA” (now known as the National Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show) before the first heifer tries to drop a calf.

Some years, the schedule said it shouldn’t work. AI calves due Feb. 8 could arrive a week early, so I often had family or friends look in on the heifers at night while my Pioneer Woman checked them each morning. Worst we ever had was a heifer that lost twins and probably would have even if I were home.  Last year nothing came till Feb. 7.

This year was different because I got sidelined by a minor brush with pneumonia.  The cattle are healthy but I couldn’t go to Nashville due to this bad bug. The antibiotics and Mucinex kicked in late in the week so I was 99% back by Friday when 4 of the 33 heifers decided to calve. They were due Feb. 8. According to schedule I would have been home by 11:30 p.m. Ish.  As it was, I provided minor assistance to two of them and we can only wonder if they would have required a neighbor’s help had I not been home. The first two were fine, but the third, #201, was bound to be trouble. The heifer was limping although her feet looked fine. After I helped the calf the last little bit, momma waited an hour to show she could walk. I locked them up, as the weather was rainy. An hour later, #211, that I called The Ghost because of her stark white face in the dark, looked like she might need a hand with her heifer.  I was there, so I obliged, but she suddenly stood and mooed as if to say, keep that thing, cowboy—I have no idea what it is and I don’t care. She ran to the other end of the acre corral. I locked her up next to 201. Morning would sort this out.

Sure enough, 211 and daughter were fine at dawn, so I let them out, but the evidence on 201 was inconclusive. I carried him into the dry of the shed and locked them closer in. Later in the day two more heifers joined the herd and seemed fine. At dusk, I unrolled a bale of prairie hay in the heifer corral. At sunset, 201 bull calf was perky but I still hadn’t seen him nurse so he stayed in for the night. Tomorrow, I kick at least 6 of them out to the next 5 acres and ride the Yamaha patrol through both cowherds to see if anything has started.

Till next time, let’s keep targeting the brand and building tomorrow together.

–Steve

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