Good morning everyone,
We hope you are all doing well, and have had a great week!
Our finish to last week in Wellington ended up a disaster. On the way to Wellington airport I filled up the rental car and left my phone with CC on the roof of the rental and then drove off without remembering I had put them there. When I got to the rental car depot I had no idea where my phone with CC was. I, naturally, panicked and went straight back to the service station to see if I had left it by the petrol pump. It wasn’t there, and we assumed it had been stolen. We cancelled all CCs and went back to the service station to see if they had surveillance video of the pump. We thought we could find out who had picked it up, so we could report it to the police. The service station was busy, and it took them half an hour to view the footage. They then confirmed I had left my phone/wallet on top of the car. On foot I then retraced the car trip but there was no wallet, or phone!
To cut a long story short, the phone had been run over, but it was picked up by a member of the public who kindly took the phone/wallet into the police station. We had to fly home but our Wellington son picked it up from the police and couriered it to us. The phone, unfortunately, was broken beyond repair. I had to get a new phone to go with my new credit card, but it was a relief not to lose my drivers licence and some other personal stuff.
What an absolute Wally!!
Back on the farm:
Whilst in Wellington our neighbour shifted the stock for us, daily. We weren’t expecting any new calves, so we didn’t say anything to him. But:
Whilst in Wellington our neighbour shifted the stock for us, daily. We weren’t expecting any new calves, so we didn’t say anything to him. But:
- While we were away, my gorgeous girl, Sunny, thought otherwise, and calved a beautiful heifer on the Saturday (as we have calculated). The neighbour didn’t notice the newbie, understandably. Our calculation on the date is based on the umbilical cord having dried out, and the girl was bigger and totally steady on her feet. She is going to be our Spotlight calf – see below.
- Then the first morning after getting home we were greeted with two more calvings! Our top genetic cow, Trixie had a lovely boy, and Biddy had a sweet wee girl. Biddy is a black/white faced heifer, and this was her first calf. It was so nice for her to calve with no difficulty.
- The last cow was a bit of drama, and we were so glad we were home. When I was shifting the herd, I noticed one of my older Black/white face cows, Flo, (due to calve twins on the 20th August) off to one side. I then noticed half of a small foot poking out of her rear end! She was ready to calf, but was making no effort to try to calve, and push the calf out. There was something wrong! I immediately called the vet, and walked her up to the yards. It was the right call, and the vet managed to calve out the twins, both alive.
We are also expecting another 4 cows to calf before the end of August. If the above is anything to go by, they will probably all be early!
Update on the twins:
There is both a bull calf and a heifer calf. When there are twins of different sexes, the female is normally infertile. They are called freemartins. The heifer is doing well, but the bull calf is not. It has no interest in drinking milk from its mother, and just wants to sleep. We have hand milked mum but the little guy has no interest in drinking. We don’t like its chances of survival! The old adage is very true: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Yesterday evening we force-tubed some of mum’s milk into him. Lets see what happens today.
Fencing:
The fencers did a great job on our cattle yard alteration. We can now hold ALL of our animals in a large area beside the yards, and then feed them into yards easily, and without any drama for the cattle or ourselves.
We have a couple of jobs for the fencers still to do – but only when it suits them between other jobs. We are so grateful for their really excellent work!
Firepits:
When all our barberry hedges were removed they dug huge holes and put all the hedging in and burnt it. These holes have now been a place to dump all the old fencing wire and damaged gates etc into, before they are refilled. They have done a great job, but we will fill them in and regrass the tops, once spring is truly here. Hopefully that is not too far away!
No Silage today:
Today is our first day without any supplementary feed for the animals. Spring is almost here. We won’t feed out tomorrow, either, but we will revert back after tomorrow, I suspect. I had to chuckle, when we shifted the herd this morning, they were all running around wondering where I had put the silage. They are now happy eating grass, but they were certainly confused to start! They are too spoilt!
Spotlight on:
Today we want to spotlight the most beautiful calf born to the most beautiful mummy. You might remember a couple of posts ago how regretful we were in sending off one of our most special ladies, Storm. Storm’s first calf turned out to be another champion lady. We called her SUNNY. Sunny is most definitely a keeper, and we were thrilled when she calved out (whilst we were in Wellington).
In keeping with the name protocols, and as a tribute to her grandmother, we have called this calf STORMY. The only worry for me (chuckling) is that STORMY might be confused for STORMY D (Donald Trumps only qualified recruit – lol).
Stormy’s photo is the top one!
That’s all for this week. Lets hope the weather warms up, and Spring finally decides to really arrive!
As always, we welcome any comments – please don’t be shy! We would love to hear from you!
Colin and Keryn