Here in northwestern Illinois we have a free newspaper called "Prairie News". This article was written by my favorite farmer: "JEANNE HARLAND is a cow-calf producer in Knox County where she and her husband, AJ, also raise corn, soybeans, oats and turnips."

The Prairie News

https://illinoisweeklies.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/prainew-2020-06-05-all.pdf

A close to calving season: Plenty of shenanigans

Somebody had to be last. This year it was 5505. She had a brawny bull calf in the east barn yesterday. AJ and I sat on a bale of hay and watched it learn how to work long legs that until a few minutes earlier had been folded up inside Mom. It must have felt good to stretch them out.

His birth brought to a close a calving season remarkable for being unremarkable. Oh, there were plenty of shenanigans. There always are when cows and calves are involved. But aside from one calf who came backwards and therefore needed a bit of help from Matt and AJ, all the cows delivered calves successfully on their own, including two sets of twins.

Our first calf was born on March 3rd. A month later we had seventy calves on the ground. Three weeks later there were just three cows left to calve. But it wasn’t all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. One evening we discovered a calf lying alone in the stalks. He was quite weak, so we brought him to the barn and gave him medicine and electrolytes. He perked up for a while, but it soon became evident that despite our best efforts, he likely was not going to make it. We spent much of the night with the little black calf, his head on my lap as I sat in the straw with him…not because we thought it would help, but because we knew that it couldn’t.

Our job is to take care of these animals, and we do it to the very best of our ability. Sometimes that is not enough. It is always heartbreaking to lose one.

An important part of what we do to care for our calves and cows is to give them regular vaccinations. We did that last week. It is a two-day job, one at the Other Place and one here at home. Dr. Iliff has been our veterinarian for many years and knows our cows by name, at least the ones that have names. His son Jay was assisting him, so the process was going pretty smoothly. Matt and his cousin Kyle were in the barn pushing the calves one by one into the chute outside. I keep a record of the proceedings and AJ is the utility person, sorting, tagging, or supervising as needed. We are a good team.

We worked the two sets of twins from the little house pasture first. We had, against all our better judgments, run them out of the pasture and down the lane to the lot the day before. In spite of our collective misgivings, that transfer went without a hitch. You may recall the circus that came to town the day we walked 202 and her two calves from the barn to the pasture. Her little red and white calf had bolted back to the barn not once, not twice, but three times.

It didn’t take long for little red and white to get her shots. She was a trooper and didn’t even bleat. Jay opened the headgate and she bounded out of the chute, head up, ready for an adventure, as always. Instead of going straight ahead and through the gate into the lot, however, she made a quick U turn, darted by me, and dashed out the walk-through gate next to the barn. AJ, Jay, and I gave chase, but she was too speedy for us.

Matt came out of the barn and we saw that she was simply headed back to the little house pasture. Matt went to open the gate, but red and white had no time for that nonsense. Instead, she trotted up the fence to where the water tank is and before I could get that gate open, she plowed through the wires of the fence to get back home.

Shaking our heads and chuckling, Matt and I hurried back to the working area and continued our jobs. Dr. Iliff had just finished the second set of twins when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. “Matt, look,” I said, pointing. He laughed. Here came red and white, trotting back out to see where mom and sis were. For a moment I thought Matt was going to chase her, catch her, and carry her back to where she belonged like he had two months ago, but she is far less portable now. We opted to let her range freely around the barnyard for a while.

Midway through the main group of calves I heard a series of loud thumps and then “Whoa!!!” from inside the stalls. The “Whoa!” was Kyle. The thumping had been calves jumping through the manger after they had moved the gate set to … prevent them from jumping through the manger.

Now Matt was yelling, “Shut the door!” But the rogues were already bouncing over the threshold out of the barn by the time the sound reached my ears. Both goodnatured, Matt and Kyle were more amused than upset at the calves’ wiliness.

Eventually all the calves got their vaccinations. Matt and AJ hauled the twins and moms the two hundred yards back to the little house pasture. This seemed like the sensible thing to do, since we had struggled with walking just one set of twins. We’d still be out there with two.

With calving season over and all the crops in, we can go to work on fences, and of course, making hay. Both are never-ending. We never have to wonder what to do. Oh, and we have already turned the bull in with the keeper heifers, so we’re just nine months away from doing it all over again.

JEANNE HARLAND is a cow-calf producer in Knox County where she and her husband, AJ, also raise corn, soybeans, oats and turnips.