Sunday, June 10, 2012

Twins

Yesterday Kris had chased a cow into the barn because he could see she was going to have a calf ... backward.  He pulled it and it was fine - a nice little heifer!

He went back a little later to check on her and saw that the cow was having ... another calf!  Twins.  It was a bull.  He and the boys got to watch her give birth.  (The boys told me about it later.  It seems pretty commonplace to them now.  They've seen twice as many births as I have this year because they go out with Kris so much.)

There were no calves born on Friday, but there were plenty yesterday.  Of course - it was Saturday!  Amazing how these pregnant cows know what day of the week it is.  Between seeing friends and graduation open houses, Kris always goes to check for calves.  This means he drives in the pasture, finds the calves in the grass - hopefully their mother is taking care of them nearby - chases the mother up to the barn, takes the calf to the barn and feeds it colostrum.

The timing doesn't always work out perfectly.  Depending on when the cows were last milked, there's not always immediate access to fresh colostrum, so Kris freezes bottles of it as a second choice.  That way there's always some available.

So a frozen bottle of colostrum takes, Kris estimates, about two hours to thaw completely.

Luckily, we live close to the barn, so while he's thawing milk, he can come and pick up more twins - ours. 





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