twins.

Don’t worry, I’m not having twins! But one of our heifers had twins yesterday morning and we took the girls down to see the twins and all the other little babies that have been born recently.

A smokey sky was our backdrop on our ride down to the field. Praying and hoping these fires are soon contained and we can go back to our normal blue skies. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for those living where the fires are burning. 

The sad thing about cows and twins is that sometimes the mama will ignore one of the twins and leave it to fend for itself while raising only one. I don’t really know why and I’m not sure I asked hubby last night.  I’ve seen it happen multiple times in my few years of being around calving season; we’ve tried to bottle feed a few, have sold a few, or been lucky to pass one off to another mama who’d lost her calf. Every time it makes me sad for the little baby calf and trying to understand how a mama could leave her baby all alone.

And that’s what we saw last night:  Mama and one of her twins much farther away from the other little baby who was laying all alone in the field.

So, we knew we had to make some decisions on what to do with the twin. Hubby doubted she’d eaten all day and we knew we either had to bottle feed her, find someone else that would, or nature would determine her fate. So we loaded her into the Ranger at the girls’ feet and headed for home. I wasn’t super thrilled about bottle feeding again, I’ll be honest. The smell of the milk replacement makes me want to gag and I don’t do so well with cow poo…but I was trying to be the country girl my husband needed me to be.

Fate intervened on our short drive back down the road home as our neighbor was out playing with her dogs.  When she saw the little calf,  already had all the supplies and had bottled fed one of our calves last year, little Mini Moo Too (as she was later named) found a new home before she could even ask her husband.  After the calf was safely moved to their horse trailer we waved good bye as her husband was walking out to see what all the commotion was about.

Very glad little Mini Moo Too found a good home and secretly very glad I don’t have to do all the bottles.