Survival of the fittest... with some help! Like I wrote earlier, it's calving time at the ranch. Jason (the boss) said that so far this year has been really good, not many calves lost (less than expected, some twins) and more than half are on the ground. The cows that are going to have their calves are constantly supervised outside, and depending on the weather and how the cow's doing when the time comes, they will be put freely inside a barn or stay and give birth outside. With so many cows around there are births going on all the time! Our house isn't close the calving barn, otherwise I could have been watching small miracles almost hourly... And (I guess) being a mom had made me more sensitive because the birth and the newborn calves make me feel the beauty of nature...
Like with all other births, things can go wrong... For the true cattlemen here at the ranch problematic births are something they handle on regular basis. And with all years of experience they have seen and taken care of most all there is to see... I don't know how they actually do with emergency c-sections, but I know they dont have a vet here unless it's really bad..I doubt even then. All calves that are wrong positioned or get stuck or so they pull and almost everytime it ends happily. Jody told me I got to learn that...I'm always willing to learn new things it just hard right now to really take part of the calving when Jamie is so small.. and for now I'm pretty happy to watch from a distance....
My only experience with calves comes from a herd of twinbred heifers (kvigor) one week..and I helped with most things... For heifers it can be alot of problems having twins so I saw a little bit of everything.. At the time I was pregnant myself and I can say if I already felt throwing up sick it didnt help with problematic calving..but you know a man gotta to do what a man gotta do..(or in this case blonde swedish woman...) And even though it's strange and macabre scenes you take part of, most of the times they end happily and your life just got some new experiences..;-)
Back here at the ranch, me and the girls visited the calving barn and got to see some new cuties! This time I broughy the camera so I give you a few newborns... We also got to see ( I didnt intend to) some calves that didnt make it and were put away all the way back in the barn. Well Natalie was fast back to explore before I saw them, it wasnt so bad with dead calves for her. She knows animal dies (from books and movies) and first question asked was " Mom if here were dinosaurs around they would eat the calves wouldnt they? ( And no she hasn't seen Jurassic Park...so I don't know where that came from!!)
What I dont think she saw or took notice about was that one of them was missing the whole skin on it's back...And I know thats an old (and well working) trick cattlemen and cowboys use when needed... If one cow loses her calf and another one has twins and not able to care for both/or die so one calf needs a "new" Mom, they cut the skin of the dead calf (as soon as possible) and put the skin on the other calf (in need of a mama) so the cow think its her calf because it smells like hers After a short while the skin can come off and the Mom has a new calf ...sounds a little rough but...simply instincts...
Another reality in Montana during winter, is that plans may not happen because of rapidly changing weather conditions... ( In this case wind and snow).. We didn't get to go to the hot springs in White Sulphur Springs yesterday, but we give it a new try another day!
Cutie!
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