Yay!! Pictures!!!

Our little farm has two new additions and a returned member. Earlier this month, the family that I work for wanted to buy Cody to use as a herd sire. I gave them the price and waited to hear back. Apparently, in going over the last winter's memories and crunching the numbers they decided they weren't ready for a bull... or their other two cows either. I was at the top of the list for a new home and I jumped at the chance!! Of course, right? Anyway, we had taken Cody over there to breed their cow so he had to come home and then we brought home Daisy, the Dexter cow and her daughter Sweet Pea, the Dexter/Jersey heifer. Sweet Pea is 4 months old and super chunky but also super short. LeBeouf isn't yet 3 weeks old and he is nearly as tall as she is. They are half-siblings and I hope she is a dainty little thing when she grows up.

~Pam

Cody in the foreground (obviously), Daisy and Sweet Pea behind him.

Daisy still has her winter coat. I'm hoping she finds the mineral feeder soon so she can start building herself back up.


Sweet Pea, watching Jasher. The only dog she had ever seen was Hezekiah, the Akita who liked to chase her. She's polled (naturally hornless) and she's pretty friendly. I was worried but the family did a good job socializing her.

We are treating Cody like a bull now, as in, I don't move him, ever and he only gets to come in the corral whenever there's a cow in heat. Most likely we will end up keeping him as our herd bull which means he will be breeding Bonnie. It's not a big deal because we are breeding for beef anyway. Sweet Pea will be ready to breed sometime next fall and I am really excited to see what the Jersey influence does to her milk. The family wasn't milking Daisy so I'm not sure how much she is giving but I'm going to find out soon. :)

He's HERE!!!

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