It’s my favorite time of year…. CALVING SEASON!!
That’s when all the cows have their baby calves. It’s a busy time for us but it is so fun to see them all being born. They grow super-fast and they are running around in no time at all. The average calf is born weighing somewhere between 60-90 lbs. That might be more than some of my #Agintheclassroom 5th graders weigh right now!!
This calf was just
born to this
first-time mama #595!
He
weighed 65 lbs. Just perfect
to get them
both off to a great start!
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There are lots of things
that influence their weight at birth like the sex of the calf, the nutrition of
the cow during her pregnancy, the weather conditions, and most of all, the
genetics of the calf. Bull calves (the
boys!) generally weigh more than the heifer calves (the girls) but not
always!! If the weather is very cold
during the winter, the cow will send more nutrition to the calf during her
pregnancy and that can cause bigger calves to be born. Also, if a cow gets a lot of protein in her
diet, this can cause bigger birth weights.
Birth weight is highly heritable (easily passed on to their babies) so
if a cow herself had a very large birth weight, she is more likely to have a
big baby! We try to control this by
using bulls that have known birth weights on the lower side of average. We want the cow to have the calf without
difficulty so the calf is born quickly and easily. Just like humans, an easy birth on mom and
baby makes life A LOT easier for everyone involved and gets the little one off
to a great start!! The older cows can
have a little bigger calf than a young cow, especially when it is her first
one. We try to be very careful when
choosing which bulls we breed the younger cows to.
Once the
baby is born and we know it has gotten milk from its mama a few times, we
weigh
the calf and put a tag in its ear. The
tag has the date of birth, the sire (or dad) of the calf, and the cow’s number. This way we can easily match up the cow and
calf whenever we are checking on them.
We keep detailed records on all of the cows and calves in our herd. It is important for ranchers to keep records
on everything!
Here we are weighing one of the new calves born to cow #225. Sometimes the mamas are a little protective
and don’t like you messing with their new babies. This cow doesn’t mind but she stays close by
and keeps an eye on us to make sure he’s ok!
We use a platform with a small scale on it to weigh the calves. Not all ranchers take individual weights but
most do tag their calves at birth.
I just took
this photo this morning (2/14/17). This
calf (#827) is about 45 days old. He was
the first calf born on our ranch. You
can see how much he has grown compared to the new calves shown above. It doesn’t take them long to get
growing!! Can you see his milk
mustache? He obviously had milk for
breakfast. I hope you did too!!
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