Cows are bred according to their heat cycle. My husband is an excellent herdsman; no brag, just fact. My mother-in-law has told me that when he was a little kid he’d sit on a fence post and just watch the cows. It started way back when!
Our herd is well-tended, as my husband observes their cycles and determines which cow to breed, when and with what bull. A cow cycles every three weeks and is usually bred 50-72 days after they’ve freshened. We have an attentive A.I. (artificial inseminator) guy who, through the years, has, with a critical eye and my husband’s approval, bred our cows to enhance their strengths and steer away from their weaknesses.
For example, if a cow is short in stature, a bull that offsets that weakness is selected, so the calf will reflect the improvement. The more stable and solid the cow, the more this maximizes the milk production of that particular cow. There’s a science to this livelihood that is very complex and can either enhance or detract from the bottom line.
My husband knows almost to the day when a cow or heifer will freshen. Nine months gestation is the norm. Every now and again, however, the cow or heifer doesn’t comply. She goes by her own set of rules, which may be, at some point, governed by the weather. Noted from www.progressivecattle.com: “Weather makes a difference. There is often a flurry of calving just before a storm. When the barometer is falling, you can expect a lot of calves. Many cows that are ready to calve begin labor in a low-pressure period rather than when the barometer is rising.”
One Sunday morning as we were scrambling to get done in time for church, my husband came back into the barn after retrieving the cow wagon to fill it with feed for the day. I was washing up milkers in the milkhouse. “There’s a heifer calving out in the heifer barn! We’ll have to get her in the cow yard.”
This was not good, as the soon-to-be mother had no time to transition to the cow barn before she calved. She did not get to adjust to cow feed, the barn atmosphere, and the daily morning and night routine. On top of that, she was freshening two weeks early.
I knew from my husband’s words just what needed doing. We’d have to corral her into the cow yard from the heifer barn, which meant separating her from the other heifers, getting her out from the larger pen, through the middle and smaller pens, into our yard and then guide her into the cow yard.
I finished up in the milkhouse while husband fed heifers. As they bent down to eat, they got locked into the headlocks, keeping them out of the way while we separated the heifer we needed. Backing her out, we coaxed her through the pens and slowly maneuvered her to where she needed to be, on dry, level ground. There, we let her be to finish her labor alone. It’s best to let them calve on their own unless we see they’re under duress. God has His way of taking care of the business of bringing newborns into the world, and we step aside unless needed.
Later on that day, sure enough, the unexpected arrival made her arrival. A brand new, healthy heifer calf was delivered by the first-calf heifer. Small, because it was her first calf and two weeks early, but healthy!
As husband got the wagon out for night fill-up, I drove the skid steer over to the little one and he lifted her up and into my bucket. I made the bumpy trip back up and out of the cow yard and every now and again, when the new arrival wanted to try to get out, I’d stop and gently lift the bucket up and back so she’d slide to the back of the bucket for the ride over to her new pen.
Soon she joined another newborn in our outside calf pen and that night enjoyed her first taste of life-sustaining colostrum, the first milk from her mother. This jump starts them on the way to a healthy life.
From conception to birth, unexpected arrivals are handled as the need arises. As a side note, momma and baby are doing just fine!
(“But ask the beasts and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” Job 12:7-10)
