Final Three Of The Year

It is hard to keep track of the last of our calf crop that was born in springtime with the three new calves that are considered part of next years calves but I’ll try to sequence this story for easier understanding.

Recently I had shared about the three young adult heifers (females) that we had moved from the show barn over the river to the main herd so that the herd sire could do his magic. Those three heifers would eat most meals with the herd but had not bonded strongly into the group and preferred to graze by themselves in their own little click. The three heifers are numbered 69, 70 and 71 with bright yellow eartags so it is easy to identify them. They had been going farther and farther into the forest each day with their foraging expeditions and one day was completely missing from the herd. By the second day we were scouting the far reaches of the hillside and forest but could not locate them, only their tracks and poop piles were how we followed their path into the neighboring commercial forest. After finding, locating and herding the three toward home, it wasn’t until yet another day before we had them moving down the correct side of the mountain and down to the main herd at the bottom of the hill. We tried moving the three into the nursery field with the three new mothers and their calves but could only get numbers 69 and 70, 71 eluded our attempts on segregating her from the main herd.

All has been fairly quiet since all the shuffling around in regards to everyone hanging out where expected until this last week when our little instigator #71 had begun enticing the three youngest of the main herd, these are the six month old calves that had not yet been weaned from their mothers, out into the forest with her. The newly formed gang of four have become emboldened with the idea of independence and had been staying away from the main herd for longer and longer forays usually to come flying down off the hill when the mothers would call them to nurse. The longer the times went between nursing was essentially the beginning of the self-weaning process and the mothers slowly agreed.

With the danger of the #71 and her three eager scouts taking this new cohort completely off the property as the group of three older heifers did, we trailered up the the three younger calves and moved them to the show barn for the official weaning without taking the extra week of green clipping the youngsters first.

The next couple of days will have some complaining from both sides of the river until the mothers have all dried up and the three young calves figure out that I will feed them all they need to have a full belly, but we did not want to spend the last weeks of the year roaming hither and yon for a gang led by #71.

Mike assured me that with her little buddies no longer around to go a-travelin’ with her, #71 should stay with the main herd. The jury is still out and awaiting to see if #71 has some more leadership tools in her repertoire to pull out for her antics. Heifers #69 and 70 are happily cavorting around the nursery field and enjoying the heck out of the month old calves as they run circles around and through the small grazing herd.