Ah., spring time…a time of wonderful weather, balmy, sunny, calm.. but not in Mudville! Or much of this country, very often, either. The calendar tells us it’s spring, but those of us who have lived here very long know that we can have spring blizzards. And dust storms.
Yes, it can be very nice. But we usually get wind and some snow and hopefully rain. And we all could use some moisture! And it’s coming. We don’t know when or how much, but we are one day closer.
Many have been calving. We are just getting started. We have some first calf heifers and evidently one of the bulls we used last year is throwing some bigger calves. And one tonight, was in there backwards! Not sure what causes that and at times a cow can have a backwards calf. I know on one occasion as I was feeding, I saw a cow with the feet pointed skyward from the calf who was trying to escape the womb…As soon as I got done, I caught a horse and rode to get her in, only to find she had him on her own and she was licking him off and he was fine. Others have told me similar instances.
This evening as I was feeding (we have the cattle in close because of the beautiful weather, Haha!) and as I was feeding I saw a first calf heifer, two feet sticking out, bottoms of the feet pointed skyward…so I hurried and saddled a horse (sure was glad I had one in the corral!) and rode out to bring her in.. she resisted, but seeing as I was on a big, stout, cow eating booger and I had a rope, me and ol’ Pilgrim won the battle. Got her in the shed and as luck would have it, reinforcements had shown up in the form of Chance and Ryan and some grand kids. A good thing too because she was on the fight (and who wouldn’t be with a big calf trying to come out backwards) and we got her necked to a gentle post in the shed and got the calf pulled. He was big and pulled hard. Oh the joy of calving heifers!
At last check she was still not in a mood to be trifled with and the calf was alive. Hopefully he will be up and sucked when I go check early in the morning.
Here is hoping we get some warm rains and lots of it in the next 90 days or so.
Dennisranch 