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Blogs by Linda Watson
Drama at Low Arvie 6/22/2010 8:19:03 PM
5.40am Well, what a day yesterday turned out to be. Oh, yes the grass got baled and wrapped - only 90 bales but very good stuff! That's the least number we have ever had so its sure that we have to cut again in the autumn. Richard managed to get 16 of them in and so faces a long day today of ferrying the rest home.
No, the drama was Zoe. She calved at about 5 pm and instead of licking her calf all over as the mothers usually do to bond (both books) she just stood looking at it as much as to say, 'what's that thing?' and then, everytime the calf (Zack, a bull calf) started to move she attacked him with total ferocity, kicking him and buffetting him all over the place. If we had not been there, I really think she would have killed him. Anyway, panic, panic, panic. We've never had this before, so what to do next? I rang John Finlay (LwtLoLA). He's in Edinburgh at the Highland Show and so couldn't come, but he said to separate them but put them where Zoe could see the calf. So Richard carried 50kg of wriggling, gangly calf and put him in the shed and then we put Zoe in the crush and Richard milked her and I fed a very hungry calf. Then we had to leave them in the new shed separated by a gate and just hope that she calms down and accepts him today! (All this very quick to tell, but three hours in the doing.)
Will update later, but as you can see, this farming life is just one thing after another - this may turn out to be story 1 for book 3!
More soon
Lxx
8.30am The drama appears to be over. We put the calf back with Zoe and she appears now to have accepted him. No buffetting and bellowing, but she still wouldn't let him suckle, so we put her in the crush and happily the calf knew exactly where to go and what to do (it always amazes me how they know) and he had his breakfast while she was confined. We've left them together now and hope that he can suckle successfully without our help at the next feed. It seems that Mother Nature is a bit lacking in Zoe, but I am now hopeful that the situation will be resolved.
