New Calves

It has been a long time since I posted anything about calves. Everything seems to be about goats lately. This is our newest calf born Sunday, March 25th.

FabHub and Best BIL had to pull him into the world because he is pretty big. The Momma cow didn't deal with the trauma very well and won't have anything to do with him, so we have a bottle calf. A big bottle calf.

Unfortunately, we also have another bottle calf. He is better than a month old, but you can hardly tell it in this picture. Now - remember the other calf is pretty big, but which is which? 

Would you believe the one on the right is the older calf? Me either. I said he was small when I first saw him, but stand him next to the new one and Oh My is he small. He ended up being a bottle calf when his Momma passed away. We thought she had a low magnesium disease called Grass Tetany, she laid down and couldn't get up. When my cow Cherry showed the same signs we called the vet to see if there was something we could do. There are a bunch of cows out there and we had to figure something out.

Turns out that the problem is nutrition related, but more because of low hay quality than the disease. The vet told us it has been a common problem in the area this winter. We don't know why, it just happens. That seems like a bad answer. What seems to have happened is the cows were weak and then went into heat so the bull got up on them and their legs couldn't support his weight. Cherry has a severely damage knee ligament is the best way to describe it I guess. She won't have any more calves. Luckily this last one of hers (not pictured) is really nice. So she did her job well for quite a few years.

Well, that is cow news for the moment, back to the goats.