Bye, Bye Momma!

Yesterday Jared and I separated the calves from their moms!  I was a little nervous of how things would go with just the two of us, but it went a million times better than I could ever have expected!

First we had to move all the cows and calves into the corral, and they were all out in the field!  Jared took the dirt bike out and rode back and forth behind them to get them moving, when they got closer to where I was standing I closed in on them and helped guide them to the open gate on the corral.  It took a lot of patience to get them to finally go through the gate but we did it, and we managed to do it without any cows getting by us!

Once all the cows and calves were locked in the corral we pushed them up near the barn into the smaller corral.  From there we took smaller groups and pushed them into the alley and sorted them from there!  I maned the gate and Jared would call "in" or "by".  In meant calves into the corral and by meant cows to go back out to the field.  This too went very smoothly and only took us just over an hour to do.  Again we didn't have any animals get by us and we didn't have to resort anything!  I really enjoy working with Jared, I feel like we are a good team, both very patient with the cows and patient with each other.

After all the animals were where they were supposed to be I helped Jared feed them.  I even got to drive the tractor and personally I think I did a really good job!

The calves are so fuzzy, they have their winter fur and I think it looks so cute!

I love this white one, his mom is a black cow, it is really neat to see them together!  

The poor little calves on one side and their momma's on the other side!

This is our one lone red calf.  We are thinking a Red Angus bull must have gotten in with our cows before we were ready to put our bulls in with them.  The bulls that are the dads to the other calves were Charolais, that's why they are all so light in colour.  Thankfully this calf is a heifer, the only calf we will be keeping this year!

I loved driving this tractor!  It is actually my Brother-in-laws, a lot easier to drive than the one we have!

Myrna came downstairs at about midnight to see if there could be something wrong with the cows because they were making so much noise mooing and bellowing!  We told her they were probably just missing their babies!  Last year when we separated them they didn't make any noise, they are quite a bit louder this year but I think that is to be expected, I would be making a whole lot of noise if my babies were ripped from me without any warning at all!

After dinner today Jared and I did have to go out and get one calf who had managed to get back in with her mom!  It went just as easy as yesterday and probably only took us 15 minutes!  Jared said we are becoming professional cattle herders!  I tend to agree!

I love being a farm girl, and as much as the cows have exasperated me in terms of our house building being put on hold, I really do like having them on the farm.