Seeing double

Good old number 68 with Burt and Nan

Wednesday morning as I drove in after taking Rafe to preschool, I noticed Mr. Bull laying on the bedding pile with all 6 of his calves.

"How cute," I thought, "I've got to get a picture."

I went in the house, grabbed the camera, and headed out. As I walked up to the fence I noticed 2 brand spankin' new calves on the ground. I looked around to see who the new mama's were. I knew good old number 68 was close, and indeed she was nosing one of the calves. But the other 2 cows that haven't calved yet didn't even look close, they weren't bagged up at all.

All of a sudden the lightbulb went off over my head.

"Wait a minute," I said to good old number 68, "you didn't have twins did you?" Indeed she had.

Good old number 68 was one of the first cows we started our herd with 4 years ago. We bought her at the salebarn, and she surprised us that first year with twin bull calves. The last 2 years she's had single heifer calves. 6 calves in 4 years. I think we've got our money's worth from her.

But having me near the fence made her nervous. She trotted off with one calf following her. But the other calf was too weak to maneuver the mud and yuck that's built up with this week's rains. I left, but all morning I kept checking on them from my office window. And all morning she stayed off with the one calf. And all morning I shouted through the window, "Go back and get your other baby!"

Finally I had to stop stressing about it. Worst case scenario, one calf dies. It would be sad, but it's not like we had twins in the business plan. Our cash flow projections wouldn't be affected. Second worst case scenario, she only accepts one calf and we have to bottle feed the other. (Of course, this would be Olivia's best case scenario.)

But good old number 68 is a good mother and this morning I saw her nursing both calves at once. Tomorrow the rain is supposed to end, and the temperatures are supposed to be back up in the 70's. That will get everybody warmed up, dried off, and feeling good.

So this year's twins are a boy-girl pair, named Burt and Nan (of course).

As much as I enjoy complaining about Matt's cows, I have to say he's built a pretty reliable herd. Those cows will lay down and pop out a calf, in sub-sub-par conditions, and be the kind of mothers that can keep their babies alive in those conditions. Now if we can only build a sow herd that does the same.

Cow hip lifter

Pretty Girl licks Charlie, while Six and Simba look on. Photo courtesty Maddog Photography

Wow, such good guesses today! But nobody got it right.

Cow hip lifter. That is the answer to yesterday's Whatchimacallit.

I know! Who knew there was such a thing?

Last week Monday we watched as Pretty Girl had her calf, a nice little black whiteface bull calf named Charlie. No complications or problems.

Wednesday morning Matt and Madeline came in from chores to report that Pretty Girl has fallen and she can't get up. (No, of course that's not what they said.) She was on her side, unable to stand or even sit up.

The vet was called (the one that's not camera shy and yet I don't have a photo of him in action) and at first he thought it was something in the clostridial family. That's something we vaccinate for, but he said other vets had been seeing a number of these cases. So perhaps a new strain? Except she wasn't running a fever. She was given the usual treatment - antitoxin, antibiotic, megadose of Vitamin B - but these types of illnesses usually result in death.

But by noon she seemed to perk up and was able to sit up. However later in the day she was on her side again and bloating. The vet told Matt to get the tractor and lift her up with the loader bucket. He did, she let out a big burp, and was able to sit up again.


The view out the kitchen window. In the center of the picture you can see Matt checking on Pretty Girl.

Then the vet brought out yesterday's whatchimacallit. The cow lifter. The way it works is the eyes of the cow lifter slip over the pin bones in the hips. The rod is tightened up to clamp the thing on tight, and the lifter is attached to the tractor loader bucket. And the cow is literally lifted to her feet. Unfortunately I was never in the right place at the right time to get a picture of the cow lifter in action.


A diagram of the hip lifter in action, courtesy of Wiggins & Associates

Once up, Pretty Girl could stand, walk, get to the bale feeder to eat and to the water tank to drink, and nurse her newborn calf. However it took a couple of days for her to regain her strength enough to stand up on her own after she'd layed down again. Friday morning Matt had to lift her up with the tractor again.

After ruling out things like calving paralysis, the vet thinks she may have had some internal bleeding that turned into an infection. We will probably never know for sure. But she seems to be back to normal. Thank goodness! (Though Olivia was hoping she was going to get a bottle calf out of the ordeal.)

Whatchimacallit

I'm going to take a page from High Hopes Gardens blog and Mark's Thinga-ma-jig Thursday series. Anybody know what this contraption is that Matt's holding?

Leave your answers in the comments and I'll give you the story behind the whatchimacallit tomorrow.

Go fly a kite

Nothin' but blue skies, do I see
Isn't that the most gorgeous blue sky?


The hardware store guy got a chuckle out of Olivia, picking out this skull-and-crossbones kite over the pink princess kites and the purple pony kites.

"This kite's for you?"

"Yep."

Chicks will pick a sunny spot on the floor over heat lamps every time.

Chicks arrived last week Thursday - 128 of them! And I have a new brooder guard, courtesy of my dear husband. We start chicks in the garage attached to the house. In the past we've set up the cardboard guard and then surrounded that with chicken wire. But it was quite flimsy. By the time the birds were ready to go to pasture they'd usually trampled down the wire and there were chickens (and litter and dust and down) all over the place. The cardboard and wire would be destroyed and have to be thrown away.

Matt had some homesawn boards made out of old power poles (something he has lots of access to as a lineman) so the materials didn't cost too much. He ripped these down into 2-by's and made 6' x 2' "frames", crossbraced, with chicken wire stapled to one side. He added L-brackets at the bottom of each panel for stability.

The panels are hinged together into whatever configuration we need. We made a 2-panel by 1-panel rectangle, for a total of 72 square feet of brooder space. The cardboard liner goes around the inside of it to cut drafts and keep the litter inside the brooder. I figure we could start up to 150 chicks in that area for up to 3 1/2 weeks. And if we need it larger it's easily added onto. It will break down and stack neatly out of the way, and no more buying chicken wire every year!



After this picture was taken I did add a third heat lamp. Two wasn't quite enough to keep everybody warm. It sure doesn't look like 128 chicks, does it?

Frosty

Frosty was born in the snow Thursday morning. But her mother, Missus Hamilton (so named because her surly demeanor reminds us of our elementary gym teacher), is a very good mother so I wasn't worried. Missus H stood right by her baby, licking her up and down to get her warmed up, patiently waiting for her to get up on her feet.

It's interesting that every year Missus Hamilton's calves have face markings that are near mirror images of her own.

Simba

Mama, bull calf, and obligatory chicken

So this was interesting. A week ago Friday Matt and I were on our way somewhere, and as we turned around in the driveway we noticed that the 6-year-old cow we purchased in February was laying up by the fence. And it looked like she was in the middle of giving birth, so we stopped to wait and make sure everything came out okay, as they say.

But after a few minutes it was apparent that something wasn't right. She had a vainal prolapse. So the vet was called. But by the time he got there, which wasn't much time, everything had returned to its proper place and she was standing there calmly chewing her cud.

Vet said as long as everything went back in, it was okay. She'd likely calve within the week, so just keep an eye on her. (And then he made Matt promise his picture wouldn't appear on this here website.)

As I said on Tuesday, storms bring on labor. And sure enough, Wednesday morning this little guy greeted us. She'd had him in the barn, no problems at all, and everything is still in its proper place.

It's hard to tell by this picture, but Simba is a huge calf. At birth he was bigger than his herdmate, Dot, who was 8 or 9 days old at that point.

So not everything around here is gloom, despair and agony. (Thank goodness!) 2 more calves to show you, with 4 more to drop yet. Stay tuned...

Tragic tale o' the day

Cows in fog

11 months. 11 months of hope and expectation. And of course financial investment. 11 months comes down to so much loss.

When Matt & Madeline went out for chores this morning, the 3rd gilt was laboring. There was one dead piglet in the corner, and the gilt was passing the placenta. Matt wondered why she'd be cleaning already when she'd only had one pig. Turns out she had 10 pigs and was laying on every last one of them.

Once he got her up there turned out to be 3 survivors. He stuck them under the heat lamp with the other litter and then had to get to work. He stuck his head back in the house, told me what happened, told me to go out and put up a heat lamp...or not, whatever I wanted to do. He was clearly exasperated.

I'm really nervous when it comes to sows with new litters. They can be very protective, and suprisingly fast and nimble when they want to be. I think I was warned too many times as a kid not to go near the sows.

But I pulled on the coveralls, gritted my teeth, and headed out. Find some twine string, climb up the fence, stand on top of it, shimmy across it and string the heat lamp up from the rafters. Grasp the pigs around the throat, cutting off their windpipe so that they can't squeal and get mama wound up. Stick them under the heat lamp and pile straw up around them.

The mama had absolutely no interest in her babies.

Madeline was out there with me. We watched helplessly for a few minutes, then she said to me, "Come on, Mom. Let's go in the house and let nature take its course." We were both in tears.

I went back out a couple of hours later. They seemed warm enough under the heat lamp, and one was actively looking to nurse. The sow was lying there taking a nap, and just a few of her rear tits were exposed. I grabbed the piglet and stuck it on there. It seemed to be finding something to eat so I grabbed the other two and stuck them on there as well. She let them nurse for maybe five minutes and then got up and walked away. I grabbed them again and got them back under the heat lamp.

Another check at noon, and they looked pretty spunky. But a check at 2:30 brought tears again. One of them had been stepped on and had a huge, gaping open wound in its side.

After work Matt and Madeline and I watched, still feeling helpless, as the remaining two piglets tried to get their mama to let them nurse. After a while we just had to leave, it was getting too painful to watch. And of course we're wondering what we'll find in the morning.

As crappy as our outbuildings are, I know these pigs would have been fine if the gilt had mothered them. We bought these gilts because the breeder was highly recommended by Niman Ranch. I guess the lesson learned here is, don't buy gilts from a confinement operation for a non-confinement setup.

The question now is, now what? Buy different breeding stock($), put up a better building($$), or get out of pigs altogether?

Spring, O Spring

After the weigh-in

Spring, O Spring, wherefore art thou O Spring?

A winter storm is upon us, expecting up to 11 inches of snow.

And you know, storms bring on labor. Somebody's going to have a baby tonight. Let's just hope they have the sense to do it in the shed.

Cuteness

How about a couple of new calf pictures to start your week?

The first calf, a week old in this picture, is a little heifer named Dot:



And the second, a bull calf named Wrigley:



Can I get an "awwwwwww"? He was just hours old in this picture. Look at those little splayed front legs!

Today I looked out the window and saw both of them running, jumping and kicking up their heels. Kill me with cuteness.

I make cows nervous

This is about as good as I could do for a baby picture. Once this cow had her calf, all it took was for me to step out of the house and she got that wild don't you come near my baby look in her eyes. They know that Matt's the boss, but I don't hang out with them enough to be trusted.

Then Monday night the temperatures dropped, the winds came up, the rain poured down. I tossed and turned, worrying about the baby, hoping her mother had taken her inside the shed. She hadn't. Tuesday all I kept thinking was, I wish I could just go out and put a little sweater on her.

I looked out my office window Tuesday afternoon, and saw Matt out there trying to shoo her and the baby inside the shed. That made me nervous. At one point he was able to get right up and pet the calf, and I was thinking "Just grab her, and run her into the shed!" and then five seconds later, "No, don't do that, you'll get stuck in the mud halfway there and that cow will have you for lunch!". (Later he told me that was exactly his thought process at the moment.)

I stopped watching, and he did evetually get mama and baby into the shed.

Thank goodness, because now it's started snowing. I hope mama has the sense to stay inside the shed.

And unfortunately, more death to report as well. Madeline purchased 6 feeder pigs for her 4-H project. One of them came down with some sort of respiratory thing and despite several days of treatment he died this morning. Needless to say, she was really bummed even though she had purposely bought 1 extra to cover death loss.

Nobody is allowed to have anymore babies until the snow stops and the weather warms up again! Nobody else is allowed to die for awhile either.

Not that they listen to me. sigh

So next post I bring you...chicken decorating! Stay tuned.

Piggies

Bellied up to the milk bar


Updated: the gilt is taken. Thank you!

The second gilt farrowed on Saturday, and had somewhat more success than the first. She had a litter of 12, with 11 born live. 3 got layed on right away, and 2 more in the next 24 hours. So at this point we have a litter of 6. Could be better, could definitely be worse.


Snoozing under the heat lamp

And on that note, we've decided to cull the first gilt. She is young enough that she will still be very good eating, and will yield more meat than a regular market pig. So if you'd be interested in a half, or the whole, shoot me an email. themillers92 (at) osage (dot) net. Our pork prices have gone up effective April 1st, but we will sell you this gilt at last year's price.

We will probably keep this second gilt and rebreed her. She's done okay for a first-time mom, especially considering the sub-par conditions we're dealing with right now.

Still to come...calf pics!

New-ish cow

This is one of the cows - the 8 year old - that we bought at the sale barn in February. These cows are taller and framier than what we have, probably some Simmental breeding here. That means that they'll probably eat more than the others. But they have really nice dispositions. It will be interesting to see what kind of calves they throw.

And speaking of throwing calves - the first SCF calf of '07 is on the ground! More on that cute little devil later, and piglet news later as well. Stay tuned!