A couple of weeks ago, one of Kelly’s dad’s cows had twins (both heifers – females) and he called us to ask if we would take the one who wasn’t doing well. I said no (really, I did!) but when it became apparent that we were her best chance at survival in our uncharacteristic winter weather, I relented.
We drove 2.5-ish hours on icky roads each way to go pick her up, loaded her up in a dog crate in the back of the pickup with a blanket over it, and headed home. We had decided she could live in the goat yard for now because it’s a small, contained space and we weren’t sure how she was going to take to the bottle since she had been sucking enough on her mama to survive for the last week or so.
My goats were not pleased with me or the imposter in their space… and they were less pleased when the calf realized she could fit in the goat houses and kept trying to enter already occupied houses.
Kelly researched different tricks and tips to get a calf to accept the bottle and our little calf quickly caught on – we are proud cow parents!
She is a Red Angus/Brahma cross (a brangus) and we are calling her Val(entine) since we brought her home on Valentine’s Day.
(We will probably remove her ear tag at some point, it just wasn’t a priority right away.)
