Calving Season

It’s calving season on the Lenters farm. This is an exciting time of year that requires a lot of attention and effort. Fortunately for me, my brother (Adam), who manages our herd, takes care of these things. I’m sure the cows wouldn’t fare very well under my care.

The exciting part about calving season is you never know what you’re going to get, especially when you’ve added some new cows to the herd and are unsure of the sire, which is the case for us this year. We have a fairly small herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle, which we are trying to expand. With our young herd, we are very much hoping for heifer (female) calves so we can increase our breeding stock.

Many people may not appreciate the amount of time and attention that farmers dedicate to their herd during the calving season, or the entire year for that matter. Adam walks through our herd to inspect the cattle a minimum of twice a day. It’s very important to constantly assess the health of our cattle, especially considering that we are attempting to raise antibiotic-free cattle.

Our cows started to calve in February when the temperature still occasionally fell below freezing. As a result, Adam had to keep an eye on the cows and make sure he got them in the barn if he suspected they might calve overnight. His predictions are fairly accurate in most cases, within a day or two. Perhaps he should have chosen a career in obstetrics.

When the calves are born, they sometimes need help learning how to nurse. While I was visiting the farm, we had a calf that really struggled with this. Adam and I spent hours, each day, for several days bottle feeding the calf and trying to get it to nurse from its mother. This can be a very frustrating process. In order to bottle feed the calf, we first had to milk the cow. This was my first experience milking a cow by hand. Turns out I’m really terrible at it and fortunately for me and the calf, it eventually figured out how to nurse on its own.

Thank a farmer today!