Kat Dancing

The last calf was finally born yesterday... a month after everyone else had calved. We really should have sold the mother, but no buyers, oh well. No problems save when we went to fetch the calf and ran across a case of Raging Hormones.

The problem with cows is that they've been domesticated long enough to have lost a lot of instinct, but have never quite lost enough, so the hormone rush that accompanies calving can bring on some really weird behaviors. In this case the mother, Shadow, had experienced some kind of evolutionary flashback and hidden her calf from predators in the deep weeds. However, out of sight, out of mind, and once she'd hidden him she kind of forgot she'd had a calf and went wandering off. The calf had fed and so was perfectly happy to lie there and sleep; we spent ten minutes crashing through brush before I finally tripped over Calf doing his brown rock imitation. Then we hit on hormone problem number two.

"I found him!" I yelled, and reached down to stand Calf up. I did not quite think this through from the point of view of a calf suddenly woken from his nap in the sun by a strange two-legged monster grabbing his ribs. He bawled his head off. Shadow came galloping over bawling her head off; you could almost hear her thinking "Crap! I knew I was forgetting something! Calf!" I picked the calf up - he kicked me too, the little bastard - and she skidded to a halt, looking suddenly puzzled. The calf was kicking and bawling and making an incredible fuss not two feet from her, but she couldn't find him.

"Oh, great," my father said, coming up to take the calf from me and getting kicked sharply in the ribs as he did. "She's going to be one of those that doesn't recognize the calf with its feet off the ground."

The only explanation we've come up for this is that an overdose of hormones causes the cow's brain to short-circuit. But it's true. The calf was bawling his head off and kicking and struggling two inches from her nose, but Shadow was circling, frantically looking for the calf. Dad put him down and she charged up to lick him off. Pick him, up, and she was off again, looking for the calf who had so mysteriously disappeared. So we had to put the calf down every five feet or so until we finally got him and her to the cart. Luckily she was able to recognize Calf in the Cart, and we got her to the barn with no further trouble.

So that's calving season officially over and done with - just as breeding season begins. We artificially insemenate. Time to cut my nails and hone up on my "My God, it felt like an arm!" jokes, I guess. Ah, farm life.