Life and Death on the Ranch

Wednesday morning brought two suprises. One Great, one not so great. First, we had a heifer that suprised us with a 50 pound Gigolo Joe Bull Calf. Yup, just one. No twin. This calf is so tiny and CUTE!! It was pretty cold, so we made a makeshift blanket for him. We took an old pair of Honey's sweat pants, and cut the leg off. We cut a hole for the legs to come out. and the end covered up his ears pretty well, to keep them from freezing.

I have to modify this "slinky" cause it keeps dropping down over his eyes, and honey cut the cuff, so I can't just cut eye holes. See how fresh he is, with his bright red umbilical cord! She really calved him easy!

You can see, he got up right away and nursed. He should be a GREAT CALVING EASE bull! So excited to get all these new calves on the ground to market them!!

Then, the other side of life on the ranch. We had a dead spring born heifer. Honey noticed she was a little bloated the night before. I went into the pen, and couldn't pick her out of the line-up that was eating. We decided that we were going to wait and see if she would go down on her own. If she was bloated in the AM, we would tube her with some oil. Well, no need to tube her. She died. That part sucks, an 800 pound heifer, dead. Her gut was probably twisted, since she died so quick, and didn't look that bloated 8 hours before. She was fine at the midnight check too.

Ahh, the realities of life on the Ranch. Both the wonders of life, and the realities of death.

I think I'm going to take Pony Girl's lead and make a Blogging Schedule. That way, I'll try to post on a regular basis about different aspects of Life, and Life on the Ranch. If you want to learn more, or hear more funny stories, just drop me a comment. I love em!