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Blogs by Linda Watson
Low Arvie calving report 11/6/2010 11:02:47 PM
Hi
Well, calving is finally over for this year! It has been a long road, starting with the two calves from AI in June and the drama of Lady Zoe almost killing her new calf when it was born and the drama of getting her to accept him, which took two days.
The main batch of cows began to calve in September and all was going well until the eighth calf, when poor Lady Bonnie died giving birth to Bella and left us with an orphan calf to hand rear. She is doing well and is growing fast, but is a very demanding little soul and needs a lot of attention to make up for having no mother.
The next two calves were born without incident and then Jeannie totally rejected her calf and it took three weeks of her being restrained in the crush each feeding time until she finally bonded with Jimmy and all is well now.
We thought the dramas were over when Lady Sarah, the last heifer to calve, produced Sammy and took on her motherly duties immediately. With only Elizabeth and Zinnia left, two old hands having their 6th and 11th calf respectively, we began to relax. But then came the biggest trauma of all, with Zinnia getting stuck in the peat bog and having to be rescued by the firemen!
Poor Zinnia (14 years old) is recovering only slowly and is now living in the shed with little Lady Zola and it looks as though she will be the last calf from Zinnia. However, they are doing OK now and Zinnia is eating well, but her ordeal has exacerbated the arthritis that she had developed in her hips and she is not walking very well. The upside is that Bella is living with them and now has a playmate of her own age to be with. Zinnia is not at all aggressive to Bella and they are all quite happy together. I think Zinnia will improve enough to rear Zola through to weaning in the summer.
Our ninth calving season has most definitely been our most traumatic!! Am I headed for Book 3???
