#50 Pente, LuLu and Parker
With yesterdays story, you heard about my six year old buddy from St. Helens that had a hope to name a calf on our farm. Olivia had chosen the name of LuLu. It didn’t take long before we had a heifer calf that needed a name, but that wasn’t all we had. We also had a twin brother for LuLu so I contacted Olivia’s grandmother, who is also her cyber-teacher while the schools are shut down.
Olivia’s job was to come up with a name for the second twin and she decided with conviction, most assuredly, absolutely, without-a-doubt, positively, Parker.
The story of the birth was a day long adventure. We had the main herd in the far, far field that is two river crossings away from the house. To feed the herd in this field, we drive the Gator up the county road and through gates, skid roads and across the 16 acre field.
While feeding, we noticed KAOS (he is like a GPS locator for new calves) out there once again messing around in the brush where #50 Pente was trying to fend off obnoxious two month old calf. We were sure that there was calving going on or that birth had already happened. While the rest of the main herd was busy eating the hay we doled out, we went to check on Pente and to get KAOS away from her.
We ran KAOS back to the main herd to eat, then saw that Pente had a set of twins in the thick brush. We were in a bad situation, the brush was so tangled that the babies could not stand easily to get to their mother, Pente wanted to keep them there to protect them from KAOS who kept running back to the area even though we would shoo him away. There were not many options, we have no structures of any kind this far away from the barns. We could not bring the stocktrailer hooked to the pickup to load the new family because Pente would never walk into a trailer without a corral and fences to guider her in. The river was too high to drive across or to carry a calf across, and every few minutes KAOS would come running back to interfere.
Mike took action, while I fended off KAOS and tried to keep the bull calf safe, he loaded the heifer calf into the back of the Gator. He hauled her across the field, out the skid road, through the gates, down the county road, through more gates, across the small field, over the bridge, across the 26 acre field, through yet another gate and held her near the river so that Pente would see her calf and cross the river. That didn’t happen. The main herd saw Mike across the river and assumed they were expected to change fields and promptly started crossing. He had to move the heifer calf so she didn’t get stomped in the melee. What was left on the wrong side of the river was me, Pente, her baby bull calf and KAOS.
Changing plans, Mike then took the heifer calf to the barn where she would be dry comfortable and secure, while we worked to keep the bull calf protected from KAOS while trying to get Pente to cross the river. After dropping off the heifer at the barn, Mike came back up the county road and through the field to scoop up the bull calf. Now the bull calf was much more vigorous than the heifer calf and I had to crawl on top of him in the back of the Gator to hold him in place while we made the wild dash back through the field, up the county road, across the bridge and over to the barn where the other twin was resting. You can probably imagine me, dressed in a hundred layers of clothes to stay warm during the frosty ride up the road an hour before. I was sweating from chasing KAOS away and turtle-ing on top of a newborn calf as he struggled to stand up while driving back up the county road. Mike was reminding me to not crush the baby while me leg cramped up and by head thumped the side wall of the Gator on the bumpy skid road. I was not comfortable, the calf was not comfortable, but we made it up the county road, across the bridge and over to the field where the main herd was now chomping grass, except for KAOS and Pente who were now on the wrong side of the river.
KAOS would try to jump on Pente whenever she slowed down so she never spotted the calf we were holding near the crossing. The pair moved upstream to another crossing, but didn’t stop there either. We kept moving the calf whenever we could spot Pente and her tormentor to see which direction they were going. Pente had finally found a spot where she wanted to cross and we had her baby near when she did. Mike kept KAOS away while I helped move the baby bull and Pente toward a gate into the field. The main herd had been following us during the whole escapade but we were able to get the bull calf and Pente out of the riparian area while keeping KAOS locked away.
We slowly walked, and half-carried the baby bull with Pente through the 26 acre field to the barn where the heifer calf was securely penned and reunited the family. Once settled safely, we returned the main herd back to the far, far field.
Welcome to the farm LuLu and Parker, born 4/6/2020. LuLu weighed in at 40 lbs and Parker a whopping 45 lbs. Both are healthy and ravenous. We will be keeping them in the barn and surrounding fields for several days while the family bonds and the babies learn to eat and sleep at the same time so nobody goes hungry.
PS a special note about the phrase regarding KAOS as a GPS unit. The line came courtesy of a reader, the description was perfect for this story!
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