Copper and calf before installation of eartags
The waiting’s over and we have five lovely Red Poll calves. Four heifers and one bull so far; three to come. Pepper was the first last Sunday, followed by her half-sister, Copper on Wednesday. Just to add excitement to an already packed Saturday schedule two were born in the early hours and a third, to ace mum and record udderist, Ginger, sometime before midnight.
As ever we worried and spent a good deal of time standing waiting and watching. It’s possible that our anxieties are more targeted now – we spend shorter periods, doing more useful things. Actually we haven’t had to do anything yet (touching wood as I type) other than be available.
One particularly good thing is that Rosy produced a heifer calf. Rosy is one of two females that our first cow “Nancy” produced before her untimely end last year. She was a lovely animal. She enjoyed company and a good ear scratch and will remain sentimentally important to us. Sentimentality is all very well but Nancy also set us up with the core of a good herd in 2003, so it’s lovely to be able to name her granddaughter “Nancy II”.
We’ll be back out later to check on them. Poppy looks like she will be next, so I guess it’s more standing about