Welcome, Charlemagne

Phil checked Fern first thing: no change. He moved the cows in the early afternoon. No change.

I went to see Fern at about 6pm. She was lying down, but when she saw me, she rose, with a pink cord hanging down her backside. Clearly, birth was happening. Then she charged Bitsy, and as the dog dashed under the electric wire to get away from the horns, I noticed the calf wandering around. The calf had fit under the electric wire, which Fern didn't dare cross.

So I carried him over and pushed him under the wire, and held him there while Fern licked him. But when I tried to come under the wire, too, she butted me in the neck with her horn. So I went to get Phil's help.

Phil built a pen around the water trough, and we managed to get mom and son in the pen. And we watched and waited for the baby to nurse. He tried, it seemed, but they just weren't connecting. When he laid down, we decided to intervene.

Superman Phil finally managed to get a lead rope on Fern's collar. That was quite stressful, as she was fairly aggressive with her horns. I'm sure it was an adrenaline rush for him to be in the pen with her. Once she was tied up, I went in to milk out some colostrum for the baby.

I had been dreading this for the last year. How would a cow, totally new to milking, deal with hand milking? Would she kick me? Some cows are very vicious with their hooves.

But she didn't! With few exceptions, she stood for me to milk out colostrum, which flowed beautifully into the pail. A half gallon of yellow richness. But the baby could not (would not?) suckle from the bottle, so I did what I had done with lambs: pushed him up to her and physically put the teats into his mouth until he could find them on his own.

Once he got started, he was an eager nurser.

We aren't sure how old he was when I found him. He was dried off, but in 90 degree weather, that's not saying much. Fern delivered the afterbirth probably about 7pm (an absolutely enormous organ), and that usually happens one to three hours after birth. So I'm guessing he was an hour old. That stinker Fern went from no signs of birth to delivered in about five hours.

When the family had discussed baby names last week, Abraham was very excited about Firecracker, which could be shortened to Cracker, in keeping with the "C" year. However, as Phil pointed out, if we have any hope of this bull being a herd bull, "Spring Forth Cracker" just isn't that inspiring of a name. So Phil named him Charlemagne. (Maybe Abraham will call him Cracker.)

At the moment, he is a peanut! I stood next to his rump, and he came up to mid-thigh: about the same place as Bitsy the labrador. And I can carry the little guy: he weighs perhaps 40 or 50 pounds. A little bull the size of a dog! It is such a temptation to pet him and love on him. Isaiah almost had to sit on his hands. A baby bull grows up to be large and aggressive, and it's not a good idea to get in the habit of playing with them.

In other news, Phil and I reconnected the irrigation system for the orchard this morning. There were five spots that had been scythed through, and one main line that was cut during ripping last year. It was such a joy to get all those trees irrigated in just a couple of hours of maintenance.