It's calving time!

Since I was a youngster, my favorite time of year has always been calving time - when all the mama cows have their babies! Unfortunately, as I have gotten older and moved away from home, I miss out on the bulk of calving season. This year some of the first babies were born over Christmas so I got to see them! You might wonder what all the excitement is about. To me, calves being born is similar to opening a present. You breed the cows to a bull (daddy candidate) of your choice and have to wait 285(ish) days to see the baby! It's always a surprise. When choosing a bull to breed your cows to, you try to select one that will improve the genetics of your herd and how your cows look. When the calf is finally born, that's when you know how successful you were.
When calves are being born, you have to pay close attention. In our part of the country, we can have some pretty chilly nights during calving season so a lot of times we will put the cows that are getting ready to calve inside a barn. This is to make sure that if a calf is born, it can stay plenty warm and be able to dry off. Once a calf is born, you must weigh it (just like a human baby) and give it an identification number. We use ear tags to make sure we know what calf belongs to each cow and for record keeping purposes. If for some reason a calf would happen to get sick, this allows us to keep accurate records...just like you would use a child's name for keeping records at a doctors office.
Here are some pics that my Mom snapped this afternoon of my Dad and brother weighing and ear tagging a newborn calf...



My brother stepping on the scale with the baby calf...



Checking to see how much the baby weighs...



These are the baby's ear tags. The ear tags tell us some pretty important information. The large number is it's individual identification number (no other calf will have the same number!). The bottom number tells it the year it was born. The "FM" written on the tag tells us what bull the calf is out of (who its daddy is). You also see our farm name on the tag. This is so if the calf would happen to get out of the fence, people would know who it belonged to.



Here's the sweet baby with its new ear tags!