Holiday unprecedented-isolated

As we're coming to the end of this blog, We thought we might add a few 'looking back' bits and bobs...

Early on the morning of 20/02/2018, I was driving around checking the cows for any new calves. Cow #1209 had calved near the fence at the road dam. All looked well.

Later in the day, I went for another check. The new calf was still close to where it was born but mum had wandered off. It's a bit unusual for a cow to leave a new calf, but I then noticed she'd had a second calf. The worry now is, does she remember that she had the first calf?

Sometimes they just don't remember having the first calf, and even if the calf is put back with her, she leaves it alone or actually pushes it away. Also, we think that they instinctively know that they won't be able to rear both calves, so one is rejected. Another reason for a calf to be rejected is that there is something wrong with it and the mum seems to know - this may also happen with single births.

Some farmers will take one calf from a cow that's had twins and hand rear it to ensure both calves get plenty of milk. Sometimes these calves can be put onto cows that have lost a calf. The most important thing is that they get colostrum (first milk) from mum, preferably in the first 24 hours, but certainly in the first 48.

The other thing of note with twin calves is that, if they are one male and one female, the female has a 95% chance of being sterile - she's called a freemartin.

We left #1209 with her heifer calf and we took the bull calf home, made a pen in the carport and arranged to get some colostrum from the local dairy farmer.

He made it quite clear from the start that he was more than happy to be bottle fed and pampered. In the end I think he thought he was a dog. We certainly treated him as a pet. As he got bigger and stronger he was quite demanding and a pest hence his name - Budapest - shortened to Buda.

23/04/2018 - calf marking - electronic ear tag in right ear - numerical tag in left ear ( first two numbers = year of birth) - bulls castrated to then be steers. Our stock agent and his friend, a local farmer, did most of the work. Janette and I do the ear tag part of the operation.

When it was all finished, there was only Buda to be 'done'. Because his 'pedigree' was so good and he looked so good, it was decided to leave him as a bull, grow him out a bit and then sell him.

Sounds simple, doesn't it. Not simple at all! We now had to 'de-humanise' him. We put him in the yards and forbade human contact - not easy as he would cry and whimper when we were in sight of him. It was hard but it worked. Andrew, our agent, sold him to a farm in Molyullah. They needed a bull to go with 27 heifers.

He was to go on the truck on Monday 18th March 2019. We were flying out of Melbourne to start a holiday that same day, so we couldn't be there to help. Andrew said he'd look after it for us. A few days into our holiday, we emailed Andrew to see how things went. He said it went well except Buda didn't want to get on the truck - he had to half push half lift him on. He said “don't worry, he's in a nice paddock with 27 girlfriends”.

Once we were home we got the full story - he was harder to unload than load! Andrew had to climb into the truck and push him- but he would not budge - he wan't getting out. What to do. Andrew had a brainwave. He remembered the truck was a tipper. He raised the truck until the slope was such that Buda ended up at the rear of the cage and he got out.

We drive past where he is when we go to Benalla and note with some pride that the little calves in the paddock look very good.Read more