Don't Say I Didn't Warn You!

The way calving starts, is we let the bulls in the lady cows about the 20th of June every year. They do their little "prairie mambo" and BOOM! 9 months later we have little calvies. So we know almost exactly when they are going to start being born. When this season comes around, we know that we have to start checking the cows. Why? So we can make sure that they have a safe birth, and to help them if they need it. What does that mean? To literally pull the calf out of their hoo-ha. We had to do our first assisted birth yesterday, but I wasn't home to catch it...DANG!

Several of us went out to check cows Saturday morning. Well, there was one heifer (meaning she has never had a calf before) laying down by herself. My cousin told me not to go over there cause she was having her baby. Well, I got to where I could see....and this is what I got:


That sack coming out of the back is her water sack. The black spot towards the top are the calves' hooves. She did this for awhile and was starting to get tired. My father-in-law said we needed to bring her into the barn to somewhere warmer. Then if she didn't have it in another 20 minutes we were going to pull it out of her.

So we decided to walk her into the barn. Well, all the movement helped her along a little, cause the sack broke off when she walked over there. The evidence:


We came back in 20 minutes, and voila! BABY!!!


Sorry if this grossed you out, but I promise there will be more gross stuff to come! I have stated before that one of the reasons I started my blog was because of the interest of my family in California. Calving was one of the areas that they liked to hear about the most, so I'm trying to get as much detail as possible! Hope you enjoy!