Something, a noise, a different type of moo, made me stick my head out of the shed and check the cows. I blinked. Was that…? Hmm, the pregnant cow was licking a newborn calf that hadn’t yet stood up. Clearly a no-problems birth.

Except it was premature. The calf was skinny and feeble, and having a hard time, when it got up, latching on to the mother, who kept moving about and making it more difficult.
I summonsed everyone, who oohed and aahed appropriately. He was very handsome, jet black from head to foot. Then shood off the spectators, and left them alone to sort it out.
Which didn’t happen. The calf got weaker, had a few more failed attempts to feed that I saw. By late afternoon he was huddled in the sun, shivering, pretty much empty.
There’s so many things still to set up since we took over, and one is a nursing mother’s pen. This is for newbie mothers who aren’t doing the job right, or for possibly difficult births. Ideally it is a small, quiet pen under shelter.

So the garage became the nursing pen.

I grabbed the calf and headed to the garage. After a moment being thunderstruck, mum followed, first at a distance, but when the calf called, she came on fast, bellowing. I skipped pretty lightly into the garage, I can tell you. Fortunately she was delayed a few seconds, distractedly charging my visitors….!

There was a mad panic rolling down the doors, then mum and the calf were left in peace. It was eventually three days before they were let out. I kept up a very luxurious menu of (hard to believe, but this is true) hand cut grass, pellets and hay. In the confines of the garage, and possibly out of boredom, she tolerated my visits and let me check the calf.

So now he’s out with the herd, racing around like a mad thing first thing in the morning. The other cows put up with his antics for a few days, but he’s obviously had a clip or two over the ears since, as he now dodges quickly if they move at him. He’s feeding well and putting on weight.

But there are still more surprises to be had….

We stopped penning the sheep up at night in the secure goose compound a few days ago. The last lamb was born almost four weeks ago, and looks to be big enough to dodge a fox. There’s still the guard dog alpaca to chase them off. Where we lost lambs at the start was the new mother separating herself from the flock. By penning them altogether they get the alpaca looking after the group, plus a bonus goose alarm system.

So I was surprised to realize we were going to have to revert to penning them up again. There was a late delivery, from one last sheep, of twins. Again, I came onto the scene late, but just. The flock were introducing themselves to the new lambs.

The sheep were purchased with the farm, so the impregnation dates are a bit of a mystery. The maths of the distributed birthdates imply a ram was onsite for at least 4 months.

The flock dutifully trudged back into the goose compound. But its been picked over, and there’s not much feed. I’ll be busy tomorrow loading it up with cuttings, and will need to keep that up for a few weeks.

And meanwhile, there are two geese each sitting on nests of 10 or so eggs. That’s been going on for four weeks now, and if they are going to hatch, it’s any day now.