Calving Season in Full Swing!

Well, I haven't posted in a little while thanks to the beginning of our calving season.  It's so exciting to greet all of my new calves.  We calve cows year round, but thanks to the seasonality of the herds that we purchased 5 years ago when we started farming, we calve heavily during the fall and winter months.  The farmers that owned the cows before we bought them enjoyed not calving in the hot summer months and during planting.  Therefore, we have LOTS of babies to be born in the next few months.  Last week we were expecting 10 calves.  With a 120 cow herd, that's almost 10% of our herd calving in one week!!  We only had 7 calves born, currently I have 3 cows that are 3 days over due.  We broke our bull calf streak last week, as we had 4 heifers born in a row! (followed by 3 bull calves in a row, but we are still pumped about the heifers!)  The calf barn is once again busy, as is the fresh cow pen.  Each morning Jon now has to check a handful of fresh cows to make sure they are doing great.  It's awesome to be busy caring for our cows, this is my favorite time of the year.  It's very rewarding to help a cow deliver a healthy calf, raise and nurture the calf and watch the new cow excel.  I am hoping to post some of the awesome calf pictures in the coming days, so stay tuned!  Off to bed, I might have some new calves waiting for me in the morning!!!

Easter Recap

I hope everyone had a very Happy Easter, including a dinner filled with delicious foods produced by American farmers. We celebrated Easter with our families on Saturday and decided to stay home on Sunday. Turns out that was a wise decision!

On Sunday morning we worked quickly to finish chores, attended Easter Sunday Mass, grabbed a quick lunch and headed back to the farm to mix the 2nd batch of TMR for the afternoon (those cows sure do eat!). Upon returning to the farm, it turns out the Easter Bunny left us a little surprise....a new baby heifer calf!!!! My cow Judas was 5 days over due, which usually means that we will be getting a bull calf (heifers usually come early). Judas was resting contently on the bedded pack of corn straw in the cow yard. Next to her was her very beautiful, dry and clean heifer calf, whom we named "Jelly Beans". She's such a blessing, especially since we had 3 bull calves in a row, as heifer calves are the future of our herd in the next years. Jelly Beans had over 10 pints of colostrum on Sunday, she's got an aggressive appetite!

Today we were blessed with another heifer! Theresa Marie, twin sister to Theresa Ann, delivered another beautiful heifer calf, whom I named Theresa May. Theresa May drank about 8 pints of colostrum within 1 hour of being born, she too has an aggressive appetite. A good appetite helps to develop a good immune system. A fun story about Theresa Marie though....

On the night of May 17th, 2008 our great cow Terry started calving. We finished up chores that night and returned to the dry cow yard to check on Terry. She had successfully delivered a beautiful heifer calf who I named Theresa Ann. We moved Terry to the new barn and we moved the calf to the calf barn. When we got Terry to the barn we put her in the hospital pen, where she had access to feed and water, as well as clean, well bedded pen. We watched her for a little while to make sure that she was doing well-we do this for all fresh cows. We noticed that she was pushing awful hard for just having a calf. We wondered if she was trying to hurt herself, so we chased her out of the pen and into an area where we could better examine her. Jon reached in to find another calf!!!!! We worked quickly to pull the 2nd calf out, she was backwards....as we pulled her out, rear legs first, we knew something wasn't right. Once she was out, we discovered that she was not breathing!!!! Jon immediately started giving her mouth to mouth, while I worked on chest compressions. It's a rough technique, but our version of Cow CPR has worked more than once. We worked for about 20-30 minutes. This calf was struggling to breathe, but with each compression and breath she began to get the "light back into her eyes". Meanwhile Terry was trying to help us by licking her calf off....assisting in stimulating the calf. We administered a shot of steroids to reduce the potential swelling in her brain. I named the calf Theresa Marie, as she was a miracle to be breathing, and over night I prayed that she would still be alive in the morning. We moved Terry and Theresa Marie back into the pen, where Terry continued to lick the calf. In the morning Theresa Marie was ALIVE!!! She was hiding in the corner of the barn behind a tractor!!!! We carry the story of Theresa Marie's miracle with us all of the time, as sometimes Cow CPR works....and the fact that Theresa Marie had a heifer today, makes the miracle almost 2 years ago, all the sweeter! Thank you God for the blessing that is Theresa Marie! =)

March Midnight Madness

I just got out of the shower after a wild night and with all of the adrenaline flowing through my blood right I just can't sleep....so I thought I would share the cause of my late night/early morning insomnia.

At 10:45pm, Jonathan and I finished up our chores for the night and headed over to the old barn to check on the dry cows. It's our usual nightly chore, making sure no new babies are born over night, unsupervised. This afternoon, both Jonathan and I had noticed that one of our heifers was acting uncomfortable (pacing the line fence, standing alone, and raising her tail). Knowing this I commented to Jonathan on the way over to the barn that she looked like she might be calving soon, early in fact, since her due was April 5th. Jonathan agreed that he saw the same signs. We got out of the car and walked through the dry cow pen, and what did we see???? Yep, Theresa Ann was in the corner of the pen, starting to calve! At 10:45pm, neither one of us wanted to stay at the farm and wait hours for her to calve to we decided to drive back to town (home) and I would come back to check on her in a couple hours. Heifers always take longer than cows to have their calves, so I knew since she was just getting started I had some time. I checked my e-mail, did some dishes and at 12:45am I headed back out to the farm. I walked back to the pen and found Theresa Ann still in the corner and no baby calf, in fact she had not made any progress since I left her 2 hours ago. Something was wrong!

I rushed into the barn and got some sterile gloves (the ones that go all the way to the shoulder). I proceeded to go in to "feel" for the calf and I found one leg, but not the other leg, and the calf was coming backwards! Calves are "usually" born front feet first followed by the head, to make sure that the calf is out and breathing once the umbilical cord breaks, however this calf was coming backwards....butt first! To make matters worse I could only find one leg! The other leg was pinned up against the hip bone of the cow and with each contraction the leg pushed against the hip, instead of coming out. Sometimes cows can successfully deliver calves backwards but Theresa Ann needed help and she needed it now! I tried to push and pull the calf so I could get the 2nd leg moved out, but it would not budge for me. In fact I don't think I was strong enough to get it to start with. That uterus is a strong muscle. I tried to call Jonathan on the cell phone. He was sleeping and turned his phone off....now what to do???? If I call a vet it would take them too long to get there to help and they cost money. So I decided to rush back into town and wake Jonathan in person.

I drove as fast as I could, and thankfully there were no deer or cops. What is usually a 10 minute drive was more like 5....I scared the life out of Jonathan, yelling for him to come and help. He threw his clothes and boots on as fast as he could and we were back on the way to the farm. We ran to the dry cow pen, 15 minutes after I left, Theresa Ann was still in the corner trying to have that darn calf. Jonathan got down on his knees and when in to find the 2nd leg. He strained and struggled, but after some really hard work he got it freed!!!!!! We hooked up the rope and pulled the calf as fast, but as carefully as we could. We had to pull quickly since the calf could not stay in the birth canal, it could not breathe there and we had to pull carefully so we did not tear Theresa Ann. Swiftly we worked and with the help of Theresa Ann's powerful pushes we delivered a LIVE heifer calf!!!!! Oh how great it was to see that after all of that rushing and stress we were able to deliver a healthy heifer calf at 1:52am!!!!!!!

Theresa Ann got up immediately and started to lick off her calf. We proceeded to clip the calf's navel (to prevent infection) and make sure that Theresa Ann drank some water. Since it was so late at night we decided to leave baby Theresa Joy and her mother Theresa Ann together until morning. Theresa Joy was tired from the delivery and Theresa Ann was enjoying her success. Not every story ends like this, but it seems that this family of cows has happy endings....I hope Theresa Ann's twin sister Theresa Marie can do the same thing on her due date April 6th =)

Well...it's now 2:25am....time for bed....Good night everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

The radio is blaring Christmas tunes, and the weather is agreeing with the season-we have snow, we have cold, and we have blowing. It's been hard to deal with this winter weather though, because it is so extreme. We have been dealing with temperatures much below zero, wind chills much below zero, winds over 30 mph, and 6 inches of snow. This weather has cause a few problems and challenges. With cold weather we have do to some extra things each day to continue to take good care of our cows.

Challenges:

• Frozen pipes: Those pipes, with the right amount of wind will ALWAYS freeze! Water is a critical nutrient for cows and calves so we HAVE to thaw the pipes everyday, sometimes twice a day.
• Snow removal: snow blows everywhere and gets into everything. We must push snow, shovel snow, and blow snow in order to just get into the barn to feed and milk the cows.
• Moving: yes moving is so much harder now, with 4 plus layers of clothes on it get to be pretty cumbersome to walk around.
• Starting Tractors: yeah, tractors really don't like to start in the winter-it's too cold and their fuel systems like to "gel" up.
• Frozen manure: hot, fresh cow pies will freeze in an instant on the right day. Manure is so much harder to move when it is frozen-making clean up so much more difficult.

Extra Cold Weather Tasks:

• Feeding the cows extra feed: cows need extra calories to stay warm during the winter months, just like we do. Long winter hair helps to keep cows warm, but heating from the inside out works for cows just like hot soup in people =)
• Bedding the cows extra: Cows need extra bedding to stay dry and warm. Cows and calves like to "nest" in their bedding in the winter. Therefore we need to make sure that we supply LOTS of straw for everyone.
• Feeding the calves extra milk: Calves need extra milk as well for extra calories, so even get a calf "jacket" or "blanket" to stay warm on those cold winter nights.
• Baby Calf Watch: We have to keep an extra eye on the dry cows due soon to have their babies. Winter is not a great time to have a calf. Typically we would be enjoying temps about 25 right now, but thanks to this artic chill we have about 12 cows yet to calve before Christmas and they are all at risk for frost bite. We check on each of them at least 6 times each day, so that the moment that they start labor we can move them to a warm pen indoors to have their calf safely-we always do the best that we can for our cows and calves so a good start is critical!

Small break in the calving...

Today we enjoyed a small break in the calving for the week. On Tuesday we had a plethora of calves born...one heifer calf, one set of twins (1 bull and 1 heifer) and one little heifer that didn't make it. We were really sad about the heifer that didn't make it. Her mother was in labor overnight, which is not good for us-we live 7 miles from the farm so we can't check on our cows as much as we would like to. Some farms have closed circuit camera and some have people hired to watch cows calving 24 hours a day, but since we are a small farm we have to rely on our own abilities to check on cows. We missed this cow calving at 2 or 3 am, and she was having problems, the calf was coming out backwards. When we found her calving at morning milking, we rushed to her aid, but it was too late for her little calf. As a woman, I think I always take these moments harder than Jonathan does, but often I do catch a small tear in his eyes as well. It's always heartbreaking to lose an animal on our farm, whether she's young or old, it's hard to watch. That is why we work so hard to make sure that all of our animals have the best care possible and we can't wait to move to the farm when the opportunity arises-to keep a better watch on our girls.

On a happier note, the calf barn is busting with 4 bulls, and 3 heifers, and I am waiting for 4 more cows to calve before Friday. I can't wait for more babies, even though it takes me double the time to do my calf chores every day twice a day, I love caring for the little ones. They are full of discovery and amazement and I think that's what makes the job so fun! Hopefully I have more pictures of little calves, and I hope we don't lose anymore of our blessings.

The joys of dairy farming!

Today was one of those days, where you REALLY have to LOVE your job. It was a day where you really have to ENJOY the JOYS OF DAIRY FARMING....

This morning we dried off 5 cows (time for them to go on a 2 month vacation before they have their next calf). After that we noticed a cow that we gave medication to induce labor had finally started labor. After carefully observing her for a couple hours we decided to intervene, but not before we chased the cow out of the mud holes in the dry cow yard twice. We helped pull the calf, a bull calf, and momma cow was doing so well! After taking care of calf and cow, we moved on to a cow that had gotten herself stuck in the mud. Well, actually she was playing with another cow and it got a little rough. #55 fell down into a thick muddy hole, and couldn't get back out. We rushed to her rescue, using the skid loader to move the mud out the way and lift her out of the mud. Success! #55 was out of the mud, but she was also in shock. SO....we gave her some calcium for muscle tone, dextrose (sugar) for some quick energy, and some pain medication in case she hurt her leg....but one that was safe for her and the calf that she is carrying. We finished that up and got to chase a heifer that needed to be bred through another mud hole in the heifer yard! Seems like all of the cows were looking for those darn mud holes today! We got Lucy into the barn for breeding. We use artificial insemination for breeding, because it is safer for cows and people to NOT use a bull. Plus we get to use genetics from around the world on our farm to improve our cows. We bred Lucy.....next, move fresh cow (cow that calved) to the milking barn....and of course she found the mud on the way to the barn.....yikes! Next we found another cow in the dry cow yard that had an infection in her foot....she got a cut and thanks to all of the mud, she now had an infection....so we moved her to the barn to get a shot of Penicillin.

Sure sounds like we were treating a lot of cows, but we were merely working around the environment that Mother Nature provided us this week. 4.5 inches of rain and cool/cold weather makes for some muddy conditions outside. Cows are unfortunately not smart enough to stay out of said mud, therefore we tend to have cows that get into trouble. We are definitely looking forward to the day that we can put all of the cows inside a barn during the muddy seasons! Once we have the money you can bet that we will be putting up a barn ASAP! In the meantime we are working to keep the cows as dry as possible...

Oh yeah did I mention that Minnesota Winter is here! It's snowing outside as I type this! I can't believe it! 6 months of winter in this darn state! I am beginning to question Global Warming especially since I remember when it was 70 degrees in November just a few short years ago. Oh well, dealing with the cards we are dealt, and enjoying the JOYS OF DAIRY FARMING!

It's a girl!!!

I am proud to report that the baby calf that I was patiently waiting for last night was born successfully this morning at 7:13 am....and it's a heifer (girl). Unfortunately I was too tired this morning to make it to milking early to check on our cow 301. Fortunately though, my father in law was up and willing to help 301 out. She was trying to deliver a breached baby calf. Much like a human mother giving birth to a breached baby....my father in law had to manually maneuver the calf into the right position. Once in the right position it was time to help 301 out. My father in law and brother in law Chris worked quickly to hook up the OB chains to the rear feet that were coming out. Typically a calf would be coming out front feet and head first but this calf was backwards, and needed help if it was going to survive. If a calf comes rear feet first the risk of it not breathing is great...as the umbilical cord breaks in the birth canal cutting off oxygen to the calf until the head passes though-speed is of the essence at this point. Once the OB chain was hooked on, a series of gentle pulls helped 301's contractions get the little heifer out. Hence arrived 301's calf Judson! Judson is doing well and we greatly thank Steve and Chris for coming to 301's aid!!! It's awesome to have people around the farm all of the time that can catch animals in trouble and help them ASAP!

Mother in waiting...

As I am typing this right now, I have enjoyed about 1.5 hours of being inside our home. Today we had 4 calves born from 3 cows and as of right now I am waiting for the delivery of calf number 5 for the day. Mother cow was starting to calve at about 11:30pm tonight. As a result I am staying up to head out and check on her. I am closely monitoring her progress to make sure that she has a safe and successful delivery for both mother and calf. This particular cow was given medication yesterday which has worked to help induce her labor and delivery. Much like in humans, if a cow goes too far her due date the risks of a difficult delivery steadily increase. This cow is 12 days past her due date, which isn't too uncommon with the sire of her calf, but we would rather be safe than sorry. She was given medication yesterday morning, with the hopes that she would have calved this morning, but she decided that she is waiting until tomorrow morning instead...so I wait, hoping for an easy care free delivery from a great cow! Out I go to see how she's doing.....

Change of Plans...

Oh those cows-they are always changing our plans! Tonight we thought we would head out to the farm early and finish chores early so we could "hit the hay" early, but those darn cows had different plans. When we got to the farm...we found a cow who had calved this afternoon. She was laying on her side, and appeared to have been laying there for quite some time. Since we were both busy with other activities today, we could not be at the farm to keep an eye on her. Normally cows will have calves with no problems, but this cow had some problems. She was suffering from calving paralysis. Calving paralysis is when a nerve in the back of a cow's spine gets pinched during the calving process. Pressure from calving causes the nerve to be "pinched off" and stops the brain's ability to control that part of the body. This cow was unable to move her rear legs and as a result rolled herself onto her side-and she couldn't get up.

We immediately rushed to her aid! She received intravenous fluids and some pain killers to help reduce the inflammation pinching of her spine. We used the loader tractor and a lift to move her out of the dry cow pen and into a shady corner of the grove. We gave her some water and feed, as well as sprinkled her with some cold water to help cool her down. After we finished chores at 10:30pm tonight we went back to the grove to check on her. While she still hasn't stood up, she looked more comfortable. She also ate and drank-both excellent signs!

Now to the issue of her calf...that tricky little heifer, which we have named "Hanska" was running around in the heifer pen all day, and found herself a corner next to the cucumber patch to sleep. It was so cute, but I was searching for her for over 30 minutes! We also returned to the barn after milking to feed her colostrum. She drank a gallon and wanted so much more, but that will wait until tomorrow morning.

While feeding heifers we also found another heifer that was ready to breed, so we also had to catch her and artificially inseminate her. We chose to use AI, because it is safer than owning a bulls which can kill people, and it is cheaper than feeding a bull on farm.

Phew! I am getting tired just thinking about all of the stuff we did tonight! So off to bed I go....it's another long day tomorrow!