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| First Calf Heifer |
Last night I went out to check heifers, and there they were: black, big bellied, moaning, groaning soon to be mommas all snuggled together tight in the straw behind the stockade. The below zero temperatures had tipped their black furry hides in white frost. As I opened the gate hardly anyone startled or moved to get up or even acknowledged my presence. Imagine if you will, 47 pregnant women due any day, lying on the ground, I guess I wouldn’t have gotten up for me either. As I walked quietly through them shining my flash light at every one checking for signs of oncoming labor, the only sound was my feet crunching in the snow and the grunt and groan of an uncomfortable soon to be momma cow. For anybody who has been pregnant, I’m sure you can relate to how they feel. I remember all too well not being able to get out of our waterbed we had for the first 4 pregnancies. My butt would sink lower than my knees if I sat up then tried to stand up. I would have to lie back down on my back and roll out like a whale. Having been pregnant a few times myself I can sympathize with the poor girls.
However, I’ve always felt bad for first calf heifers. They just don’t see it coming.
They are weaned off their momma’s in the fall, fed and taken care of in the feedlot all winter, not a care in the world except maybe when the next bale of hay will show up. Soon spring shows up, and they are like a bunch of little kids with spring fever, they nibble at every piece of green grass they can find, sick of eating the dried up bales of hay. Before they know it they are turned out on green grass! It’s now time to eat, grow, run, buck, play and kick it up! Summer is here! They are like a bunch of teenagers on summer vacation. There is nothing worse than rounding up a bunch of yearlings. It’s almost as much fun as trying to get teenagers to listen to you!
Then round about June a trailer pulls up to this lush green pasture and out steps 3 of the prettiest black bulls you could ever meet, if you are a heifer in heat! These boys know how to strut their stuff and really know how to sweet talk the ladies. Those poor heifers don’t even know what hit them, they start cycling and before you know it those 3 handsome boys have worked their way through all 60 heifers in 45 days then they’re gone!
They continue the rest of the summer, care free and feeling good! None the wiser to what their little fling with the big black bulls got them into. Fall rolls around and they start gaining a little weight by February, their waddling everywhere they go, their udders start to swell and there is something in their bellies kicking them in the ribs. All you mommas can relate! But you know why. These poor girls don’t have a clue what’s in store from them. With your first baby, your mom, your grandma, your best friend and quite frankly any woman who has ever given birth told you exactly how much fun labor was. You don’t really know, but you have some idea. Nobody has warned these poor girls, nobody has told them all the horrible horror stories about giving birth. Surely nobody told her about pulling the calf if she can’t have it on her own.
So it starts, first they get a belly ache. You can see them pacing the fence, really uncomfortable, then they are kicking at their bellies, trying to make the hurt stop… still no idea that their care free life of running bucking and kicking is about to come to an abrupt end. No idea, that that handsome black bull that whispered sweet nothings into her ear last summer in one fell swoop made her a single mother.
Before she knows it she’s in full on labor, and nature and instincts kick in now, thank God for that, because this poor creature still has no idea what’s happening to her. Shortly, if all goes well, the contractions and pushing produce a baby calf that instincts tell her to get up and lick off. Next this little guy is stumbling all around and she’s bellering at him, and before you know it every other heifer in the lot shows up to check him out. They have never seen anything like it before. A crowd forms as they try to decide what this little miniature cow is and what he wants. Hungry, the calf stumbles around looking for momma in the crowd of black legs. If her instincts have kicked in she’s looking for him too, but for some of these girls, that is not their first instinct. Some of them won’t stand still and let the poor little guy get a suck, they are confused by this little mini me following them around and want nothing to do with him.
And if heaven forbid, she couldn’t have it on her own… there is good chance she really won’t like the little guy. He will have to be an acquired taste. Once she accepts the fact that she is a single mother, they are sent out together and she is responsible for keeping this little guy safe. And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t get between her and her baby! Now she’s a mother, and she will stop at nothing to keep him safe.
Next summer, that big black bull and his buddies will come waltzing back into the pasture. He will sing his sweet songs again and whoo her all over again, along with all her friends. At least this time she knows that he isn’t sticking around to help out, and she knows who to blame for all the weight gain and the kicks to the ribs.
Yet, there will be a whole generation of new first calf heifers with the same problem next year.
