Cowmomma's Cupboard

This year's calving season is running later than usual.  Most of the time, all our babies have arrived before the leaves start to turn.  We bred back more heifers this year though, which makes for a less predictable calving schedule as the young mothers do not re-impregnate as readily after calving.

 There are several things we could do to make this less of an issue.  We could more carefully insert and remove the bull so that we would have a more specific idea of when our cows conceive.  We could also remove the calves sooner from their mothers.  With the market so far off productive this year though, we have actually been just as happy not to have the females breed back, so thus far we have kept our herd all together in one pasture- bull, cows, yearling calves, and now new babies.

This has given us the chance to see what natural herd behavior looks like.  We find our big herd sire- Time Bandit runs a tight ship.  While there is plenty of horsing around and rough-housing, there is no fighting.  And we have two two year old bulls in that pasture also.  They have grown up there and for the brief time we seperated them, these two were unhappy and started fence jumping to get back into the main pasture.

Everyone defers to Big Daddy and Africa, his herd queen.  I have been amazed at how much Time Bandit has to do with the calves.  They usually stay fairly close to him- frequently laying up on him, he grooms them regularly, and at the sign of any threat, the youngsters all flock to him.  At this point he has more to do with them than their mothers do. 

If we pen the calves to work them, Bandit paces about outside the arena, bellowing and fussing until we give him his kids back. He checks each one over to make sure it is unhurt.  This degree of paternal care has surprised me. So much of our animal handing is disruptive to the normal behavior for the species concerned. 

Watching this bull-calf interaction has made me contemplate other aspects of our animal handling to look for ways we unnecessarily disrupt natural relationships.  Our animals are happiest and easiest to work when we follow natural herd dynamics as much as possible. So this has become the 4B way.

Though it was still below zero last night, today is it a screaming sunny day and all the cows and bulls are less interested in eating today, than they are in sun bathing.  There is a frenzy of grooming going on out in the pasture.  I helped by brushing everyone who wanted brushing this morning, and got lots of mud off some of those big round bellies.  the ice shells have even melted off the donkeys.

If we have too many more days like this, I will start to believe that spring really is on its way.  Dan has been mooning around saying that he is ready for new calves to come. Last years babies are so big they are not really calves anymore. They are looking more and more like yearlings.  One of the farm catalogues arrived with a picture of a red Mom and newborn on the cover and that had us cooing and getting all nostalgic for calving.

 We have a bit to wait this year because we bred a bit later to try to assure that the last of the ice and snow would be gone by the time the calves started to drop.  That means we have to be patient though and it won't be till May instead of April for our first ones to arrive.  So two more months, instead of one at this point.  Ah, well, we can make it.

We will have chicks, ducklings and baby turkeys very soon so we will have some little one to help mark the arrival of early spring.  As far as chickens go, we are going to start Buckeye's this season as well as Auracanas and Buff Orphingtons.  I am going to try to breed the Buckeyes as they are endangered. 

We have not had a breeding flock before so that will be a new endeavor for us. They will go in the trailer and out in the enclosed back pasture, so we hope they will be a bit more protected from predators. They will have the cows and Time Bandit to defend them.  And my gun is cleaned and ready.