Berry Creek has a new arrival this month. Born on 1/11/14, another extremely hot day. Our young droughtmaster heifer birthed. This little girl had a hard time for a few days as the mother, a maiden heifer tried it’s damndest to keep it away from her udders.
It was hard to watch this calf on its wobbly legs just trying to latch on. And the cow altering her hind legs and walking off. This process was repeated on and off for 2 days.
After consulting the almighty Google on this matter it was found that it is not uncommon for maiden cows to reject their young as quite frankly they just do not know what to do.
Solutions for this to establish a bonding pattern included:-
Putting calf and mother in a confined space (not possible);
Sprinkling calf with grain and encouraging mother to lick off the grain (no grain).
Kaye suggested molasses that we always have (kind of like chocolate for cows mmm), so that was applied to the calf’s coat.
After another day the hormones must have kicked in as now this little girl is getting her daily milk ration and getting stronger! (see photo.. more soon)
The rain came the other day and now we have a bit of green pick for the cows & buffaloes – a welcome change from the Humidicola bales.
We’re all looking forward to the wet lush paddocks and full dam.
It was hard to watch this calf on its wobbly legs just trying to latch on. And the cow altering her hind legs and walking off. This process was repeated on and off for 2 days.
After consulting the almighty Google on this matter it was found that it is not uncommon for maiden cows to reject their young as quite frankly they just do not know what to do.
Solutions for this to establish a bonding pattern included:-
Putting calf and mother in a confined space (not possible);
Sprinkling calf with grain and encouraging mother to lick off the grain (no grain).
Kaye suggested molasses that we always have (kind of like chocolate for cows mmm), so that was applied to the calf’s coat.
After another day the hormones must have kicked in as now this little girl is getting her daily milk ration and getting stronger! (see photo.. more soon)
The rain came the other day and now we have a bit of green pick for the cows & buffaloes – a welcome change from the Humidicola bales.
We’re all looking forward to the wet lush paddocks and full dam.
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