Tag Archives: Calves

A few days old and separated by 150 yards from his mother among a line of cows feasting on alfalfa, this bull calf returns home, to one of several shady pockets or nurseries where the calves are laid down after nursing. In good shape, we try to limit feeding this bunch of third-calf cows to once a week to reduce the pandemonium when the hay arrives—a new experience for this calf fresh into this pasture. Every cow’s head down, he’d walked the line back and forth, his calls unanswered, hot and frothy when he and another older calf wandered towards me, the older gently guiding, head to neck, the way to the nursery. The older calf immediately claimed the shade he must have risen from when the hay arrived, the younger calf still assessing his place in the world through the twigs of a fallen sycamore.

Try as we might to push our calving date back two weeks to avoid the first of September heat, the bulls would hear nothing of it, repeatedly visiting our neighbor’s virgin heifers intended for Wagyu bulls. Also, we were under the influence of Big El Niño prognostications, wet weather for the first half of December that could hamper hauling the bulls up the hill to our older cows. With the stars and daylight hours aligned with our bulls’ internal clocks, we opted to let them go to work rather than having to bring them home and fixing fence everyday.

Nine months later, our own internal calendars click to new beginnings as the calves come, a new season and new year as we begin to leave summer behind and wait for the first rains to start the green feed, that unpredictable time of year when we harvest grass with cows to raise another crop of calves. Welcoming the shorter days, we’re saddled-up and ready, looking forward to another wild ride.