Bonnie finally calved, 10 days late, on July 11th. He is very tall and taped at 75 pounds!! Yikes! She delivered him alone and without incident around 6 am. I'm incredibly thankful that everything was okay and now I'm holding my breath as her udder edema is slowly going away. It's very painful to let down right now and this calf is not that bright or aggressive. I managed to get some out of her left side this morning but not nearly enough. I'm going to try hot compresses tonight and see if we can get her to let down through the pain so I can get that milk out. If the calf doesn't start to nurse that side then it will dry up or it will get mastitis and end up infected and icky. Either way those quarters need milked.
In a week or so I am going to band him and in 18 months or so we'll have lovely, grass-fed beef for our freezer. :) :) :)
So, without further ado, here are the pictures of his cuteness, LeBeouf!
This is 12 hours old, nice and dry!
He's doing much better about nursing and has finally realized that there are at least 3 teats for him to choose from. Her left, rear quarter is still really swollen and the teat is not easy for him to nurse, plus he's really tall and that quarter is really low that I'm not so sure he even knows it's there.
We'll see how much I can work that quarter tonight and hopefully tomorrow will be easier on him.
~Pam
This is 12 hours old, nice and dry! 
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