A Matter of Honor

Sometimes even when you try to have a system,  things go awry.

 This is never more true than when you are dealing with living creatures who have their own way of viewing the world and could care less about yours.

#27 is a prime example of this. She was due to have her calf soon and was out grazing with all the other "soon to be mommies" when she got the bright idea to walk through the electric fence, have her baby and hide it and then go back with the herd for food that night.

Most mothers will stay with their babies and that is how we find the baby. But #27 must not have gotten that particular memo and being hungry she just headed back to the normal routine. We all looked for the baby but since she had been out free when she had it and it was rapidly getting dark we had no success.

There was a pounding rainstorm that night and all I could think about was that little baby laying out somewhere all alone while its mother was back fenced in with the herd for the night. The next morning I started looking again. The road gave testimony to what a gully washer the storm had been, leaving the roads dotted with small lakes




Funny how the familiar fields and pastures can seem so vast when you are searching for something not obvious. 

The dogs waded through belly deep grass, the cows grazed unfazed and everything appeared in its place. Nothing gave a clue as to the whereabouts of one small calf fending for itself somewhere....
 

I searched nearby fields, everything was quiet and still.   The only thing to do was let #27 loose and see if she would go wherever it was  she left her baby. To her credit the milkers had said that she seemed "anxious" the night before when they observed her. I was glad to hear that it wasn't just me!  

So loose and on her own for a walk about, #27 headed to the tree line.

Good! That's where the baby was!

 No.

  That may be where she had left the baby but there was no baby there now and #27 seemed as mystified as I was as to its whereabouts, looking at me as if to say "I left it right here...."

 I decided to go do other things and come back and check in a bit and as I turned around to leave I saw a flash of white laying between the rows in the nearby peanut crop. 
 

  as I  headed toward it, the flash of white sprang to its feet on full alert.
 A night out on your own can do that to a body, danger is everywhere!  

  

I was only allowed to get just so close before "flash of white" bellowed  at the top of its lungs and  took off in the opposite direction from me which was perfect because that put it on a collision course with its mama white tail flying high like a flag...  

when the mother and child reunion was complete #27 looked at me as if to say "Its all good, you can go now."    

Au contraire Miss Moo, there is still the matter of getting everyone back to where we are supposed to be which is NOT the middle of a field of peanuts. So we negotiated and she took off in a lazy amble down the adjoining lane to rejoin the herd, stopping to show off her baby to friends along the way...

before too long everyone was sorted out and back in place.

All that remained was to enter this new little one (a heifer as it turns out and not a bull) into the official record book.  All of our calves are given a name and not just a number for the last two years. It makes it more personal and is working out really well.

 Lately we have been having a run of "Knights of the Round Table" character names. We have a "Hope" a "Valor" and so this calf now has a name in the same vein of thought....

  She is named "Honor"