No matter what species it is or how many times it happens, the birth of a baby is always a miraculous thing. This morning Matt told me to watch a certain heifer that was standing off from the rest of the herd. Half an hour later I looked out the window and she’s licking her newborn calf. Wow. The first SCF calf of 2005.
A few hours after that Matt called from work to see if the calf had stood up yet. Amazing, isn’t it, how some animals are expected to get up, walk, and find their food at 2 hours old? He hadn’t yet, so Matt talked me into going out there to see if I could get things moving along. I really wasn’t keen on this. I think cattle are beautiful animals…from a distance. And I’d just recently heard about a farmer killed by his bull.
But I decided to give it the old college try and walked out there. Mama was laying down so I got her up first. She walked over to her baby making those short, low little moo’s they use to talk to their newborns. So baby started to try and stand up on those weak, wobbly legs. He was still wet and shivering and shaking which made it even harder for him to get going. It’s only about 25 degrees this morning.
After a few ups and downs he finally got his legs under him and started trying to find an udder. The bull happened to be standing next to him so the calf started there first. This could be trouble, I thought, but I was amazed at how gentle that bull was with that tiny calf, gingerly trying to step away from him without stepping on him. Within 20 minutes the calf found his mother, found the udder and latched on.
An everyday miracle.
aren’t those first moments a little tenuous?