Preg testing and a new arrival

The cows and few calves were all mustered the other day from the big paddock ready for the vet on monday. I took our youngest son down to have a look. He was keen. I had to get changed into jeans and boots rather than leggings and dress (a town appointment was cancelled). Itty Bitty MDK announced to me approvingly you look GOOD!! I think I shocked the vet coz he usually sees me in teacher work clothes, not farm get up.

This is the screen that the vet could check on, its new and it has a long yucky probe attached- I don't think you'd like to see it!  Sometimes he could tell there was a pregnancy though couldn't see it clearly enough, we were trying to age the pregnancies, so that we could split them into different paddocks and have the 2 groups calve out at around the same time.

So with the cow confined in the crush in the yards, when the probe wouldn't reach, the vet had to occasionally do the testing the old fashioned way - by hand- gloved of course. 

Then to the right went the cows close to calving and to the left went the empty and midway pregnant ones. Each cow got a spray of paint along their back to indicate their status. The empty ones were later drafted out and sent to town and sold this morning at market.

while the mummas were still waiting to be scanned, I let the little fella get in and have a cuddle with the new babies. This wouldn't worry the big girls.

We worked the gates and helped out for a little while. Itty Bitty wanted to push them up the race, I thought he was a bit hard so had to remind him these were cows with little babies and we were going steady, steady so there'd be no stress.

However, one little fella didn't get mothered up after it all. I got the phone call, do you think the kids would like a poddy, in other words are you up to morning and night feeds or do we leave the calf a bit longer and it might get mothered or it may starve. I chose to not take the risk. This is what arrived at my house on Tuesday morning.

He hadn't mothered up after the event. I am hoping that he was one of the twins seen with a big white cow that was left in the paddock. She was a little bit too silly to muster and it wasn't neccessary.

Morning and night this will be my task, though this morning while I lay in bed reading blogs on the Ipad and giving myself a headache (too close and no glasses on), Miss MDK did it all by herself- yay! Though I did rush out to check that she didn't have the milk too hot. All was good. At this stage we worked out that thongs were not going to cut it around him, he likes to step on toes, enclosed shoes from now on!!! We've put him into a Big old goose yard next to the chookyard. We don't have any geese any more. This will stop the dogs from annoying him too much until they are more used to him. The boys did a good job cleaning it up so there'd be nothing he could get hurt on, as all the spare metal is also kept in this yard.

He's very lovely and the kids have been giving him plenty of looovin'.

When I was in the yard, I noticed this was going on.

The Mulberry tree is starting to sprout it's fruit and leaves.

The frost will turn them black, its all too soon.

This English Oak hasn't even lost all its leaves yet.

A new flower. There's not many going on around here.

And these strawberries are now fruiting up.

The silverbeet plant I put in a month ago are going well, despite the chooks getting out and having a go at them.

Back to my decluttering of the linen press! 

xx MDK