Calves Then and Now

Well, I must say I was certainly surprised when my beautiful red and white calves started turning black or dark brown and white. Huh? I was told that Jerseys do that. It's been so long since I had a Jersey calf that I didn't remember that, or maybe all we got the last time was bull calves and they were sold. Now, the market is all about the beef bull or holstien bulls (last check was $7.00 something a pound for day-old calves at the sale barn.) Jersey or crossbred calves not so much, actually downright insulting.

We had a calf born the other day from a crossbred cow that we had no idea what she was bred to. It is obvious it was holstien. My husband said as we went to move it so mom could clean it up, "Let it be a bull!" It was a heifer. She is adorable. He named her Holly.  Hey, that is an improvement over the other names he has come up with.

My husband came home with two cows at the end of April that are supposed to be crossbred Jersey and holstien. One doesn't look so much crossbred. They were enormous, weighing in at 1450 pounds and 1300 pounds. He named the heavier one (definitely crossbred) Tank, which I let him get away with because she was built like a Sherman tank and being all riled up from changing farms, she crawled under the rails and beheaded a water bowl. I saw it coming and was already at the shut-off valve. Whew! She is considerably calmer now. The other he wanted to name Jeep! I said no. She became Flossie, although he is constantly calling her Frieda for some reason. They were springers, which means they were close to having their calves. Tank had a pretty deep red heifer. I named her Willow. Flossie had a brownish red bull calf. His name is Buster. We may keep Buster as a replacement bull. The jury is still out on that. The other bulls have already been altered to steers.

Ghost about a week old                                                      Ghost now


















My red calves are turning dark colored! I really hated putting in ear tags. Their ears were so cute without them.

(I have been trying for two days to load the other calf pictures on here, but for some reason they just refuse to go. I don't know why. Wish I were a techie!)

We now have 12 calves in the barn and one due today, but she isn't acting as if she will have it. Then again, the vet told us one was not due July 30th, but May 30th, dry her up immediately. We're still waiting on it. At least Brownie is all ready to go. She is bagging up nicely.

We have to get that pen ready to put the older calves outside. It has rained so much, when it stops we have to catch up on other things that have been put off. Wish us luck!