Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"  (Read 5684 times)

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #15 on: January 07, 2020, 09:44:42 pm »
 :roflanim:

Love their names :)
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Muddy Wellies

  • Joined Dec 2019
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2020, 06:12:07 pm »
Still no calf....
We seem to have slipped seemlessly from being late from expected date to being early for 3weeks later
I've been checking her regularly for 2 weeks now.
At what point should I get worried?

PipKelpy

  • Joined Mar 2019
  • North Shropshire
  • Dreamer with Mary, (cow) and sheep.
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #17 on: January 11, 2020, 08:39:55 pm »
3 things

1 - have you seen movement from either side? Shimmering or flinching? Mum always says that the calf is On her right (from behind)

2 - following on from seeing movement, can you feel it? That's if the animal is quiet enough. With Juniper and Knickers, not pressing too hard i felt the calf move, just for a split second, but I did feel it.

3 - stethoscope! Got one? If not Get one and listen. I have one, not brilliant, picks up wonderful gurgling noises from Junjpers guts rather than a heartbeat! Once I got it into the right position a faint boom boom boom could be heard.

In the past when we had the bulls here, we had to watch and wait and guess many times by mum feeling their bums. Now, with AI i know the date (kind of) and I have the vet out to scan to confirm pregnancy.

Now theres a thought, do you feel her bum? I can never feel it but mum can. It's where the bones separate in preparation. She says usually gives you 6 hours notice.
Halter train the cattle to keep them quiet but watch your back when they come a'bulling! Give them all names even those you plan to eat. Always be calm. Most importantly, invest in wellies with steel toe caps and be prepared for the clever cow who knows where the toe caps end!!

Muddy Wellies

  • Joined Dec 2019
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #18 on: January 15, 2020, 07:41:08 am »


stethoscope! Got one? If not Get one and listen. I have one, not brilliant, picks up wonderful gurgling noises from Junjpers guts rather than a heartbeat! Once I got it into the right position a faint boom boom boom could be heard.


A stethoscope is a great idea! Even just for the fun of hearing the rumbling tummies!
I'll keep a look out or one   :)

Muddy Wellies

  • Joined Dec 2019
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #19 on: January 15, 2020, 07:49:55 am »
Plus both sheep and cows can “keep them in” if they think the conditions aren’t right.  Which does indeed include not being given any peace!  Lol.

Well she took this to the extreme and held the calf in til Storm Brendan arrived and the van slewed off the track and got stuck in the mud and the wind was so strong I couldn't stand upright never mind walk across two fields to the shed...

So she had undisturbed peace all afternoon, if you can call a raging storm peaceful!

And to rub it in, the whole herd started trumpeting the calf's arrival just as I landed face down in the mud and muck having finally managed to navigate myself and a wheelbarrow of food across in the dark, after both torches packing up...

Calf has been named Brexit by the kids....

Cow has been renamed  :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: by me!

Anke

  • Joined Dec 2009
  • St Boswells, Scottish Borders
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2020, 08:58:36 am »
Plus both sheep and cows can “keep them in” if they think the conditions aren’t right.  Which does indeed include not being given any peace!  Lol.

Well she took this to the extreme and held the calf in til Storm Brendan arrived and the van slewed off the track and got stuck in the mud and the wind was so strong I couldn't stand upright never mind walk across two fields to the shed...

So she had undisturbed peace all afternoon, if you can call a raging storm peaceful!

And to rub it in, the whole herd started trumpeting the calf's arrival just as I landed face down in the mud and muck having finally managed to navigate myself and a wheelbarrow of food across in the dark, after both torches packing up...

Calf has been named Brexit by the kids....

Cow has been renamed  :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: by me!
Well at least calf is here and by all accounts all went well! You were keeping us all on tenterhooks... (a smallholder who is not allowed to have cattle sadly...)

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #21 on: January 15, 2020, 10:55:23 am »
Cattle and sheep giving birth in storms happens way too often to be coincidental. 

Glad she’s finally popped! 
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Old Shep

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • North Yorkshire
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #22 on: January 15, 2020, 01:04:07 pm »
Cattle and sheep giving birth in storms happens way too often to be coincidental. 

Glad she’s finally popped!


Apparently for humans too according to a obstetrician neighbour who has worked in many different countries.  She reckons its low barometric pressure which sets them off.  I now have an app on my phone during lambing so if there's a massive drop in pressure we can get ready!!   
Helen - (used to be just Shep).  Gordon Setters, Border Collies and chief lambing assistant to BigBennyShep.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #23 on: January 15, 2020, 02:34:57 pm »
Counter-intuitively, there is probably an evolutionary pressure for it.

Lambs (or calves or other herbivores) born into a storm may well perish before they get that all important first feed, so you’d think there would be evolutionary pressure against it.  But as it is most definitely a thing, I’ve wondered about a few factors that could create an evolutionary pressure for it.  The first and most obvious is that predators wouldn’t be very likely to pick up the scent of the birth fluids etc.  The second is that any offspring which do survive such an arrival will clearly have good mobility at birth, and be fairly hardy to bad weather; the mother must have good mothering instincts and lots of good quality milk : all factors which improve survival rates no matter what the circumstances of your birth.  In years when all the young are born into stormy weather, in a wild species, the only survivors will be those with these factors. In a domesticated situation, humans mitigate this of course, and nurture and rear a number of the youngsters which would otherwise have perished.  “Fair weather mothers” will lose disproportionately more of their offspring when the weather is bad, so over time, the stronger will be the ones whose genes dominate.  That’s my theory, anyway
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Old Shep

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • North Yorkshire
Re: Bagging up - and "un-bagging"
« Reply #24 on: January 15, 2020, 03:54:47 pm »
That all sounds very likely.  Also perhaps predators are less likely to be at large?  When you only need to eat every other day you may as well wait until it stops raining  ;D
Helen - (used to be just Shep).  Gordon Setters, Border Collies and chief lambing assistant to BigBennyShep.

 

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