Mostly Angus mom and a small Hereford dad.

This cross is called a black baldy. Part of the pink on the calf's belly is a fresh umbilicus as this is day one of its life. It now sports a color coordinated ear tag, white with black numerals (26) in its left ear (applied after the picture was snapped. It is a little bull and a friend wants to trade me a calf of equal value (all black as the rest of my herd) so he can have the genetics the little bull has (quite nice.) That saved the little fellow from a quite tight fitting rubber band that would convert him to an it, uh err ah... steer. He was born Sat morn and another (all black) on Sat afternoon with first honors going to a black Angus heifer born on St. Patrick's day. Tis the season...

Pat

Nice looking calf. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Youngest four calves, including the black baldy.

Young calves are always refreshing when their large eyes are looking at you.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

This morning it was 29 degrees at 0700 but cruising up through the 40's toward nice day temps by 10:00. This morning I moved three of the mother cows and their calves a half mile to put them in with the main herd. The pied piper of Hamlin has nothing on me. They would follow anyone carrying some feed in a bucket.

I left the youngest calf and it's mom in the maternity ward to be company for the last of the 5 to calve. I think #6 is within a few days of calving. My buddy, Red, thinks cows are much more likely to calve when the moon is fuller and will certainly "pop" during the fuller part of the moon cycle within the next few days.

None of the rest of the herd seem to be closer than a month or two out so when #6 calves and after everything seems OK with her and her calf for a few days I will empty out the maternity ward and have them all in THE HERD. This is easier for me as I don't have to put out hay for THE HERD or take feed to them as the grass is coming on.

I have a weened steer getting up over 400 lbs and a huge cow (1100-1200 lbs) whose calf was born dead the size of a house cat to take to the sale barn. I call her the tank as in Abrams M1-A1 since she is so big (compared to my other stock) and charges up at high speed when food is in the offing.

Pat

Pat, I never figured out why those critters want to have those calves on cold nights. Our forecast last night was for a low of 42 and at 7 a.m., my thermometer showed it to be 42, but the NWS says at the airport it was 29 in this area. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

Cold nights? I thought it was mostly cold, rainy, windy nights. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

We have one day of snow between days in 70's and 80's and that is when my wife's favorite first time heifer calves. Our very first two calves ever came on cold windy rainy nights.

I now prefer to feed late in the day as it tends to increase the odds of a daytime birth. So far it has worked pretty well since we started doing it. I have never had to pull a calf of mine or call in a vet, even for first timers, but if I had to call out the vet it would be much nicer to do it in the daytime and not 0300 during a storm.

Patrick