Male vs. Female

So far this year, calving season has been very uneventful. Which is actually kind of nice for a change; it’s been really really nice to have everything go so smoothly. We don’t have any first-time mamas this year, so all of our cows are experienced giving birth & taking care of their babies. And we haven’t had any runaway calves or anything crazy like that happening. We have 25 cute little calves with one more due within the next week or so.  Like I said, it’s been nice to have everything go smoothly, but it’s left me with not as many stories to tell as we would normally have.  But just when I was thinking that nothing interesting or exciting was happening, we had a day like today. Let me tell you all about it . . .

We had been keeping our bull in the same pasture as our horses during the last several months (We keep him away from the cows for a few months when they are giving birth as a way to control when the next year’s calves will be born). One day, about a month or two ago, a gentleman stopped us as we were feeding the horses & the bull. We’ll call this gentleman “Gus”. Gus has two cows of his own, and was interested in leasing our bull for a month to breed his cows. He’d be willing to pay, of course, and would feed the bull and take care of him at his place while the bull serviced his cows. We couldn’t see anything wrong with this; heck, we weren’t using the bull’s services at this time, so why not lend him out to a neighbor in need & get ourselves a bit of cash?

So we did. We hauled the bull to Gus’ place, which was only a mile or so down the road. Gus and his wife are probably in their 50s, maybe 60s, and they’re some real nice folks. He says they always buy a steer or two each year to butcher & share with their kids. Last year they bought two heifers and figured on breeding them and raising a few calves. It was getting to be dark by the time we dropped him off, so we didn’t get a real good look at Gus’ cows or his place, but it looked like a pretty nice facility. We wished the bull luck, and then we were on our way. Didn’t see him for a month.

Enter today. Today was the day that we had scheduled with Gus to pick up the bull. Clayton and I drove down to Gus’ place, back the trailer up, set up some corral panels to make a chute of sorts that we could use to herd the bull into the trailer. The bull and Gus’ two cows were in a smallish pasture, maybe half an acre or so. Gus has recently had some surgery, and so he is unable to help us out, but that’s no problem. We’ve chased cows before. Gus’ cows were pretty flighty, and wouldn’t let us get close to them without sprinting away. Our bull was hanging out with these new friends pretty closely, so we chased all three of them around the pasture a time or two before we decided to change our strategy. See, our bull is pretty big. He can’t run as fast as those other two bovines, because he’s so bulky and muscular. We figure that if we can separate the bull from the other two, then he’ll calm down and we’ll have more success in herding him into the chute. Gus has a small corral by his barn, and we decide to pen the two crazy cattle in that corral, and then separate the bull from them. And so we do. We get all three animals into the corral, and then let the bull out. In the meantime, one of Gus’ crazy cows has jumped over the back fence and is now in the field next door. We let that animal alone, hoping it’ll calm down, and focus on getting our bull safely into our trailer. Which we eventually do, because he’s not terribly wild, and we shut him inside the trailer, safe and sound.

Since we had contributed to the problem of Gus’ cows being crazy & jumping the fence, we opted to help him out and get his animal back into his own field. Some people maybe would have left the old fella to get his cow by himself, after all, it’s not our problem, but that never would have occurred to us. We found a gate that connects the neighbor’s field to Gus’ field, which we opened. Clayton took off on foot, Gus drove off on his four-wheeler, and I stayed by the gate to prevent Gus’ second animal from escaping. Let me just say here that Gus and his wife were both very nice people. They just didn’t have a whole lot of experience with cattle, perhaps. After watching Gus ineffectively trying to herd the cow with the four-wheeler, Clayton diplomatically borrowed the four-wheeler and began herding the cow himself. This cow was pretty wild. It was running all over the neighbor’s field, getting all of the horses in the neighborhood all stirred up. The four-wheeler has an open box built onto the front, which was holding some random tools, gloves, you know, the kind of stuff that you find around a barn or in a garage. Whilst on his wild-cow chase, Clayton does a great job, but in the process, tools, sprinkler heads, gloves and who knows what else, bounces out of the box and is now spread all over the neighbor's field. But the cow eventually gets pretty worn out, Clayton nearly runs it over a few times, and sooner or later, it finds its way back home. Safe and sound.

Now. Ahem. It was pretty clear to both Clayton and I upon our arrival at Gus’ house, but was made certain while we were in close quarters separating the bull from Gus’ two animals, that Gus was unfortunately very much mistaken on the gender of his animals. The two “cows” to which our bull had been employed to breed with, were in fact, not cows, but were also bulls. After a quick whispered discussion, Clayton and I knew that we couldn’t just leave these two nice people expecting to get cute calves in the spring. After some careful questioning of just who had sold these two “cows” to Gus, Clayton gently informed him that they were not cows, but were bulls. There would be no baby cows come spring. We hated to be the bearers of bad news, but figured that we ought to be honest with the poor fella. Gus was surprised and embarrassed, and we pointed out the finer details of the bulls’ anatomy to him. Make no mistake; they were both fully-equipped male bovines. To give Gus some credit, the bulls were fairly young (about 1 ½ years) and their man-parts were not nearly as pronounced as our older bull’s. I can see where someone who didn’t know what they were looking for might not see what they were looking for. And the crazy bull that jumped the fence had never let Gus anywhere near him in all the time that Gus owned him, so it’s not like he was ever able to do a close physical exam. Gus said neither he nor his wife had much experience with cattle, and that the person who sold the pair to him said that they were female. Perhaps the seller of the cattle mistakenly gave him the two bulls, or maybe there were some strange dealings going on; I don’t know. But Gus was glad that we were honest with him, and so grateful to us for not laughing at him and for spending an hour & a half on our Saturday morning for what turned out to be a futile endeavor. We felt pretty bad for Gus, and gave him some good tips and advice before we left.

                                            This is a bull . . .

                                           And this is a cow. Can YOU tell the difference? If not, come on over and we'll give you an anatomy lesson.

Clayton's awe-inspiring tag

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve lost some of my bravery when it comes to tagging calves. I posted before about brave things that I’ve done in the past, so that you would think that I am cool and brave, but really, I’m not. I'm having a really hard time admitting it, but it's true. Deep down inside, I am a wimp. Especially lately. Maybe it’s because I’m out of practice, not having tagged any calves last year since I was pregnant, but I haven’t tagged a single calf by myself this year, and I don’t particularly want to! Ok, ok, I do want to tag a calf by myself, but I haven’t found the courage yet to do so (PS, if anybody calls me a wimp to my face, I will punch you in your face).

Before I realized that I was a wimp, I attempted to tag a new calf a few weeks ago. No big deal, I’ve done it half a dozen times or so in the past, right? The mama cow was standing nearby, eating her placenta – Ok, here’s a disgusting side note. Cows eat their placenta. The theory is that the mother cow eats the placenta to remove evidence of birth that might attract predators, which might harm her baby. There’s also the theory that it is just so darn nutritive and healthy, so why not eat it? Apparently most mammal animals do it. I’ve heard of humans doing it too, and that just makes me want to vomit, but whatever floats your boat. If you want to eat placenta, go for it, but count me out. Anyway, for whatever the reason, the cows eat their placenta, and I think it’s gross.

Back to the story. Mama cow is slurping up her placenta like a bowl of spaghetti, but still keeping a watchful eye on her new baby, who is lying in the grass close by. I sneak up, loaded tagging gun in hand, slip my hand onto the baby’s ear, position the tag, and just as I start squeezing the gun closed, the calf jumps to its feet and leaps away. In my cowardice, I am imagining the angry mama cow coming after me, so instead of concentrating on firmly squeezing the gun and getting the tag on, I sort of lose my grip and jump away from the calf to protect myself. The sharp tip of the tagging gun grazed the flesh off of the calf’s ear, and the tag, of course, is still on the gun. I didn’t get the job done. The mama cow, now aware that I was up to no good, keeps her calf close to her. And of course, the calf wants nothing to do with me because I just scraped a goodly portion of flesh off his ear. Humiliated at my failure, I slowly walk back to Clayton and tell that I am a no-good cowhand and ought to be fired. Oh, the shame.

Good old Clayton takes the tagging gun from me and goes about to complete the task. I try to tell him that it’s no use, the cow and calf are both too wary now, but he won’t take no for an answer. I watch with some skepticism as Clayton slowly approaches the pair. He crouches down, and to my disbelieving eyes, the calf gradually walks right up to Clayton, cautiously stretches out his little neck and sniffs him. Clayton gently reaches up, caresses the little calf on the head, softly takes his ear and slips the tag on. The calf runs back to his mama, and they live happily ever after.

What the?? My jaw is on the floor. How did he DO that? It’s like the calf was offering himself to Clayton to be tagged. You’d think that the baby would be wary and afraid of humans; after all, I had just ripped a hole in his ear not three minutes earlier. And the mama cow, well, it was like Clayton wasn’t even there. If I hadn’t been there to see it for myself, I never would have believed it. It’s one of the many times that I have kicked myself for not having a camera in hand. It would have been a wonderful photograph; Clayton reaching for the little calf, and the calf stretching up his neck to meet him.

I am now in awe of this man that I married. He must be some kind of cow hypnotist or something. And throughout this whole calving season, I’ve seen him time and again do the same thing. He slowly approaches the pair, waits for the mama to calm down, and quietly reaches in and tags the calf. It makes me almost embarrassed of my “tackle the calf and sit on it” approach; which seems so rough and clumsy in comparison to Clayton’s finesse.

A few days ago, we were out feeding and Clayton was carrying our 10 month old with him as he cut the strings. A day-old calf that he had tagged yesterday was lying in the grass nearby. Clayton approached the calf, petted him softly, and then placed our little girl next the calf. He quickly snapped this photo with his phone, and then they were on their way. The calf never even blinked at having his picture taken with our baby. Lucky me, to be married to this cowboy!

Baby girl, learn from your daddy, and maybe not so much from your mommy.