Spring means babies!

Ah spring...freezing rain, mud and yuck, and lots of newborn babies! Yay!  This is Bandit, a mixed breed bull calf born about a week ago. His mother, No Face, is a little shy on milk, so we are supplementing what milk she is giving with a little extra.

This is what happens when Bandit sucks on your fingers after he's done drinking his extra. Yuk!

This is Stomp and her babies born yesterday. She is a half saanen, half oberhasli, out of excellent milking line. Her oh-so cute useless little boys are out of a pure saanen father. They should make excellent herd sires for someones milk line, as they should throw heavy milking daughters. They are about one hour old in this picture.

Where the Longhorns Lie...

Ahh, Texas Longhorns. These cattle were bred for open scrub range, nasty freezing wind and no shelter.
Ours seem to do ok. They are a lot bonier than other beef cattle, and they don't seem to grow longer hair. I just can't figure out how they manage.

But, upon sneaking up on them in the dark, I discovered them in a pile. From left to right we have Peony, Penny, and Noodles.  Our bull, Black Out has his face neatly tucked in between the shoulders of his wives to protect his face from the bitter cold. Top and center is Pale Face, a mixed breed steer with his eyes squeezed shut, even though he was awake.

On an unrelated note, an update on Sad Lion's calf. He is doing great! Our daughter named him King Lion, and King of the cattle jungle he is.  He leaves mom to wander among the big herd at will, and I have found him sleeping far from where he is supposed to be on more than one occasion, and he is only 4 days old. What a stinker!

Today's Special

This morning was the coldest morning of the year so far. Minus 10 at sunrise!  And wow, what a disaster we found upon awaking. Apparently the power went out around 11:30pm and didn't come on until 4am or so. Result?  Frozen cattle water. Ugg!  The line that runs to our cattle tank froze solid.  Chris wrapped hot towels around the faucet, afraid that it froze into the wall. He had to get at least the faucet itself thawed so he could shut it off and drain the line in the wall.

That was the first surprise.

The second, was Sad Lion had her calf around 11am this morning. It was bright, sunny and 10 degrees!
She did everything right and so far so good.

This is his first attempt to stand. We discovered he was having a problem because all her birth yuck froze into an ice slick.  So we drove her off and put some hay under him for traction.  Good thing there was no wind!

Isn't he cute? Solid grey.

                                                             She's a very good mother.

                                                                  He finally got up.
                                                                 Update tomorrow.