So What Now?

So once we have all of these little calvies born, what the heck do we do with all of them? How do we keep track of them? Well, this is where the numbered ear tags come in. This is a very technical process to get this done....not really.

We have a bucket that carries all of our supplies-including the ear tags, a super sophisticated cow ear piercer, some large pliers to cut chunks out of their ears (this helps identify them if their ear tags fall out), extra ear tags, a sharpie to write on the extra ear tags, and the cow "bible" that we write down each cow/calf pair. Two of us will go out into the field to tag the calves. We have a lot of babies born, so we have to do this every couple of days, or else it gets too overwhelming to try and match each calf to its mother (sometimes they get confused, and sometimes the moms are naughty and don't claim the babies).

We drive out onto the hill, and my FIL is usually the one that goes after the calf. Sometimes the calves don't really care and are too tired to run away:

Other times they get a liiiiiiiitttle crazy and run away. It's mostly funny when my FIL has to run all over the field to catch the calf.

Most of the time it happens like this...we drive into the field, and right away the mommas go right to their babies. He gets out of the pickup, tools in hand. He sloooowwwwly approaches. The look this cow is giving is like, "Oh no sir. You are NOT going near MY baby."

He goes a little further, still watching the cow. This part is very critical, because sometimes the mother cows get so protective, they will charge you and "take you." Meaning, they'll head-butt you, ram you, whatever they can do to protect their babies. Thankfully, that didn't happen in this case, or most cases for that matter. We do have one right now though, that will charge you and we aren't allowed to go into the pen alone.

After the cow decided that her baby wasn't going to get hurt, my FIL puts the baby's  neck between his knees and holds it still. He pierces the ear, puts a notch in the other ear, and checks to see if it's a boy or girl. In this picture you can see the ear piercing thing he has in his hand. It looks kind of like a hole punch.

 While he's doing this, the momma usually goes behind him, and sniffs her baby to make sure he/she is ok.

And finally, my sweet little boy being so good, and staying in the pickup with me so he doesn't start chasing cows all over the countryside.

The babies above are all out in a larger field. Their mothers are cows who have had calves for at least the past 3 years. The cows who are younger are in a smaller pen near the house so we can keep a closer eye on them. They tend to be the ones who have the problems calving. So, we have to go into that lot to tag those little calves. This usually isn't as strenuous for FIL, since they don't have near the room to run :)

And occasionally the ear tags fall out, so we have to get the big cows in a large chute so we can re-pierce their ears. Does she look happy to you???

Sometimes we have to drag the calf to get the mom to go where we want her to go. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt them.

And mom smells them, just to make sure they're ok :)

I have seen some of the babies in the field starting to run around and play with each other. It's one of THE cutest things ever! I'll try to get another little video of this, but it probably won't be until next week.

Happy Hump Day everyone! Today is my Thursday-tomorrow I'll detail why I'm taking off work early this week-and probably bring back some old college pics!