Life on the Farm: Calving season

Calving Season

A warm spring breeze flows quickly through the blooming trees. The cold of winter has left trees standing stark still in the ever-glowing light of the day, but the sun has started to awake them from their peaceful slumber. Flowers start to sprout and bloom creating a colorful pattern across the lush green carpet that spreads along the Earth. In the distance, you can hear the quiet footfalls of deer making their way down the trails to bask in the spring sun. The cold, crisp water flows in a rush down the rocks along the old creek bank. In the grass under the old wise cedars, lays a young cow with her new born calf. As the world begins to awaken from winter slumber, the spring calving spurt begins, once again, on the farm.

“We have another one,” is the normal way to start the morning conversation between my father and I during the month of March until about June. On the farm, we have newborns year-round, but we tend to have little pockets or “spurts” during the spring and fall where anywhere from 20 to 40 young first calve heifers and old cows will have babies.

From March to June and again from August to October, we are pretty busy on the farm. In the spring, we are in the process of planting corn and harvesting our rye grass we planted after corn season finished. In the fall, we are busy harvesting the corn to feed the cows. To add even more adventure to the mix, we expect babies to be born at any point during that time.

Our pregnant ladies are kept in certain areas on the property. A cow will produce milk until around 60 days before having babies. At the farm, we vaccinate the cows 60 days before having babies, and turn them out into the dry pasture where they can graze, eat corn, have access to water and just relax throughout the last two months of pregnancy. Our heifers (cow teenagers before having their first baby), will become pregnant at the farm and then we send them to a maternity pasture. The maternity pasture is a couple of miles from the home farm. In the pasture, they have free access to water, grass, and hay 24/7. We visit this pasture once a day and feed them ground corn. When it gets closer to the time for a few of them to start having little ones, we visit them twice a day.

It is always an exciting time when the babies are born. We always look forward to watching the young heifers as their motherly instincts take control as they care for their babies. We are always excited to welcome new cows in the herd and have older cows come back for another lactation (time the cow is milking). It’s an exciting and wonderful time and we are just getting start out here in life on the farm.

–Submitted and Photo by Courtney Henderson, Special to the Botetourt Bee