The chronicles of calf 27

Author's note: this is the initial segment of following a calf from birth. As always these photos and many more are on my Flickr photo stream. 

I have been waiting until there was a calf born with very distinctive markings that can be easily tracked before posting about springing calving, calving is what it's called when a calf is born. When I saw that Bowtie had calved I was hoping she had another white face calf, Bowtie is an all black cow except for a small patch of white hair on her forehead shaped like a bowtie. She is not a pet, just a nice calm cow like the rest of them that won't run someone over if she thinks they even looking at her calf.


Calf 27's first visit to the corral, he couldn't have been much more than 2 or 3 hours old when I found him in the pasture. He followed Bowtie into the corral when I fed this evening.


Calf 20, the one with the white on his face, was Bowtie's calf last year and a full brother to calf 27.


This is a more recent picture of calf 20 at the cattle pens. He was one of the younger calves of the ones from our cows. We bought some calves from local farmers to feed with our calves. All of the calves will go to a custom cattle feedlot in a couple of weeks for the finishing phase.


This is an attempt to show how tall the grass is in the calving pasture. This happens to be a patch of Big Bluestem, our native grass pastures are very diverse in different plants. Most of the cows prefer to have their calves out here, but a few have calved in the corral.


A calf hiding in the tall grass, I just barely noticed it when driving by. I have trails that I drive on so I can see any calves laying where I drive.


I saw this cow and her calf laying in the corral one morning when I went to check on them. They seemed so content sitting in the morning light. Her calf had been born the night before.

 
Cow 9 with her new born calf minutes after she had it. I was trying to get a picture of her standing, but she just couldn't yet.

There are 16 more cows yet to have their calves keep checking back for more adventures of calf 27 and his pasture mates.