Calving Update

GMEG Jealousy and her new son born early July 1, 2013

My good red purebred Limousin cow, GMEG Jealousy calved right on time very early this morning.  She had a nice sized black bull calf, my first bull for the year and my last calf due this spring.

Big sister BTAP Zooey is a little put out. She was pretty excited when mama cow let down her milk and was down on her knees trying to nurse.  She seems content to give over to the new little brother, but she's still staying close to the cow. That's the back half of Zooey on the right hand side of this picture.

Lady's bull calf by BTAP Thor. He was born March 19, 2013

The old crippled Angus cow Lady calved March 19.  Here is a picture of her fine big Lim-Flex bull calf. He's Thor's first son and he is a whopper! 

We were not thinking at all this winter and didn't tag the calves when we had the chance.  Now we are not sure who is who, except for Lady's bull calf who stands head and shoulders above every one else.

We have 14 calves,  eight of which are bulls.  Some are by BTAP Thor and some by HSF InFocus (Bobby) and four are from AI sires.  All the March calves are Thor's except Samantha. She is by Bobby. The May/June and July calves could be either Thor or Bobby.  This new calf of Jealousy's could be Bobby's because its black and although Thor's father was a homozygous black bull, and Thor is black, his grandmother on his mother's side was a red cow.  Jealousy has been bred to black bulls in the past and has produced red calves from them.  Last year she was bred to a homo black bull so her calf was black.  It's possible that this new calf is Bobby's because its black. Bobby is a purebred Black Angus bull and should through only black calves on Limousin cows.

Limousin Calves Grow Fast

The view from my back porch about 7:00 am. ZZ Tom on the right.

Most mornings I get this view of my cattle herd from my back porch.  They come up from the creek at the bottom of this hill to a salt feeder.  From here somehow they decide where they will spend the day.  Sometimes they go east to pasture, sometimes south.

The last week or so the weather has been hot and humid and the flies are very bad.  Many of the cows and calves, and the bulls too for that matter, crowd into the barn where they stand side by side head to tail and tail to head so they can swish the flies off each other. 

I have a large handheld garden sprayer full of fly spray and I try to sneak in the barn and give them all a good soaking but they hate the smell and don't understand what I'm trying to do for them, so they leave in a huff. The picture below is of Bobby with his ears back slogging out of the barn to escape me and the sprayer.

Bobby the bull, also known as HSF InFocus. He's purebred Angus

Bob is having a great summer breeding the cows.  We decided not to AI this year - the calving is just too strung out from March to whenever. Here it is the end of June and we still have two cows to calve.  So, Bob gets the run of the herd until the last calf is at least three months old.  He has to share the pasture with ZZ Tom, my nice yearling Limi bull out of Violet by Tommy Boy. I notice that Tom is checking out the ladies and Bob lets him sniff around a bit, but then knocks Tom out of the way if things begin to get busy.  I have Tom for sale and hopefully soon he will have a herd of his own. He's very calm and sweet tempered and looks so much like his brother Thor that I know he will make someone a great herd bull.


Calves by BTAP Thor

Speaking of BTAP Thor, he was purchased earlier this spring by a farm near Akron, Ohio. Most of this year's calf crop are by Thor and we are very pleased with the results. In the picture at right the calf on the far left is by Thor out of Sarah, a big white Shorthorn cow. The bull in the center is by Thor out of a registered Angus cow.  The calf on the right is purebred Angus.  They were all born in mid March.  The Limis come small (we only pulled one calf and that was Violets stillborn bull) and grow very fast. The Angus may catch up with them around two years of age but generally the Limousin influenced cattle are bigger than the Angus - that's why they are known as the carcass breed - lots of pounds of meat. 

Fawn Killed on My Road

Photo by Paul Sundberg Photography

As I drove home this afternoon I could see ahead some small animal had been killed almost in front of my driveway.  My first thought was that it was a squirrel because of the red color, but as I came nearer I realized it was much too big to be a squirrel. Then I feared it might be one of my red tabby cats.  But no, as I finally came to a stand still in front of the little body I could clearly see that it was a tiny fawn. My stomach flip flopped and my heart did the same. This was such a sad sight, the poor little innocent body lying in the road with hardly a scratch on it. Left there for the buzzards to clean up or another car to further mangle its tiny body. Careless driver!

I parked in my driveway and walked back the 50 feet or so to the poor little body. The fawn couldn't have been more than a day or two old and looked so much like the one pictured here by Paul Sundberg Photography. For a minute I thought it might just be stunned. But then I noticed the belly was torn. It hadn't been dead maybe half an hour, no blood and just a little fluid.  Rigor mortis had not set in.
I picked up the tiny body and took it to my car where I had a garbage bag.  A storm was coming up and has been blowing all evening so I will have to wait until morning to bury it.  It's little body will be buried next to Violets still born calf from last month.

Come fall I'll be anxious to have my hunting buddies thin out the white tailed deer population on the farm. It's not good for the deer to become too numerous. Several young bucks are hanging around the place eating my roses and the tops off the raspberry bushes.  But my heart goes out to this tiny baby who didn't even get one good summer of life before one of the cars that roar down our little country road snuffed out its existence.