Calving 2014

We started calving the middle of March and were done the end of April. Had 11 cows and 2 heifers to calve. Heifers decided to wait 'til the end of the season, but they both had nice small calves and no difficulty. Ended up with 8 heifer calves and 5 bull steer calves.

It's nice to be able to just look out the window to see if anything is happening. Girls enjoyed being able to help watch for calves to be born. Hannah got to where she recognized if the process was starting. We missed seeing a few calves born, but got to see most of them. None of them were up close where the girls could really see them, but they enjoyed going out at chore time to help tag, etc.

We had to pull one calf, a big bull calf. We had to pull her first calf last year also. Not a big cow to start with, then a big calf...uffda. Poor momma. That happened late at night, when the girls were sleeping. We had went to Bozeman for the afternoon since Rodney had a professor hiring committee meeting. We also had John and Dennis here, but luckily all the happenings outside didn't bother anyone. After some pulling we finally got the 100+ lb calf out! Poor momma.

Here's a few pictures:

first calf born

Nicole's not sure what to think :)

the one we had to pull

Daddy's chore helpers

had two calves this day - here's the first

get back here-what did that guy do to you?!

and the second - #8 is #44's daughter

we have some cows we don't have to worry about what they'll do when we tag their calf. girls enjoy being able to pet those ones :)

big boy we had to pull

4 days apart - but #11 was big and #8 was little :)