Calving Heifers at 6 Degrees
Calving Heifers
The first cow’s calf hit the ground this year on New Year’s Day, but thankfully the heifers waited until February to begin their journey into motherhood. Now all at once, it seems, calves are everywhere. Four birthing mothers this morning seek the brushy corners of the calving pasture, laboring in relative privacy, where they can stand over their newborn for awhile, till he’s dried off, hopefully fed and sleeping.
Overnight, it seems, almost, thirty of them have arrived, curled up tight against the six-degree dawn, hunkered in an east-facing swale or a sunny niche under a frozen sagebrush. How do they know, the first night of their lives, to tuck themselves against a tumbleweed-drifted fence, where they will soak up the paltry warmth of a winter sun on their second full day on Earth?
In a day or two, we’ll gather them up. After they’ve had a chance to get used to each other without the interference of men, the cowboys will gently urge the new babies and their frequently goofy mothers out of the brush and toward the corral. There they’ll be relatively protected from coyotes and the worst of the north wind.
In the morning these calves will wake up with a score of their newborn cousins, and by 9:30, when the air warms to a comparatively balmy 25 degrees, they’ll have someone to play with. Moms will be head-down in the drifts of fresh hay scattered by the feed truck, except for the designated babysitter. She will wait her turn, keeping the children occupied in the far corner of the corral while their new mothers refuel, gathering up the young, in a pattern as old as time.
Babysitting
Photo by Carolyn Dufurrena