Monday 12 July 2010

A first for Creag Mhor Croft

I thought I would share something with you all.
There is a first time for everything, after all the years of breeding cattle from father to son on Creag Mhor Croft never in the past has there ever been TWIN calves.
That is until this week, two beautiful Limousin bullocks.
We nearly only had one but for fate stepping in at the right time.
Rosie was heavy in calf, but did not look any fatter than usual, I brought her in last Tuesday as she never came in to the park with the others, so we decided to make sure she had the calf in easy reach just in case things went wrong as they sometimes can.
We kept her in for a day and night but let her into the park as she was not going to part with the baby under public scrutiny.
Any way she walked off onto the common grazing's on Wednesday morning, so things were going to progress shortly.
Anyway later in morning out popped a soggy Red wee boy, my hubby went to check everything was okay and took some nuts over for her.
We thought nothing of it and left her to bond with her new arrival, she licked him furiously cleaning him up.
Later on just before dusk, she decided to move down towards the old house with the rest of the heard.
We thought the little calf was quite hardy to manage down there with her.
We went to bed thinking everything was Rosie, "pardon the pun".
Next morning we did our usual duties, feeding animals and getting ready for work and so on.
Just as we were about to leave the house My hubby noticed the calf up by the fence.
But when he put the binoculars on Rosie down with the rest of the heard, he noticed that she had her calf.
So she must have had the second calf and walked away from it.
We gathered it up and took it down to her in the back of the Landrover.
She knew it was hers but was not keen to let it suck her, so we gathered both the calves up and put them both in the back of the Landrover and took them both back to the shed with mother following behind.
Once we got her into the shed my hubby cinched Rosie up so we could get the second calf on the teat to get a drink of milk.
Once he had a few goes at it he got the hang of it quite quickly.
We have kept them in for a few days to bond with one another but they all appear to be doing well fingers crossed.
We have not got a name for them as yet but that is no problem I'm sure we'll think of something.
Rosie and her new family.