#64 Suzy Q and Question

The title of this story could be; Little guy, big faucets.
It was time for the evening chores. Suzy Q was definitely in labor, she was pacing, sniffing the ground, holding her tail up and every few minutes would stop when a contraction clenched her belly.
We tried to move her away from the 11 still-pregnant mothers, but Suzy Q was all worked up.
We tried to get her to walk toward a gate that led into the nursery field, but she did not like the idea of heading that  way. Then we tried going the other direction to a fence that was farther away. She kept us going in circles for a good half hour before her contractions increased in intensity. Her natural instinct to find a quiet spot to calve kicked in and she aimed for the back of the field where we had been trying to move her in the first place, but instead of going out into the nursery field, she overshot the gate, forded a small stream that trickled from the spring, and headed into the tall timber on the side hill.
Mike was able get around her and bring her back to the gate. Once she stopped long enough to look around, she saw the gate and walked right through. She had her baby, Question, in less than an hour after that.
Suzy Q is one of our ‘more senior’ mothers and the teats on her udder have grown thicker each year. By morning, Question had not yet nursed and her teats were as big around as cans of beans. Little Question just could not figure out how to nurse from those bulbous appendages.
We moved the pair into the barn and Mike manually milked out enough fluid so the teats were a more manageable size. Once Question realized that there was milk in those balloons, he ate with gusto.
Welcome to the farm, Question. Born 4/16/2018 weighing 88 lbs.
Mother and baby are doing great and are now back in the nursery field with the other cow/calf pairs.