Daisy and Rosie will be calving in March

Back 21+ years ago when we were expecting our first baby, we purchased the book shown below to give us insight about all the changes going on.  I remember being nervous about being a Dad for the first time and we wanted to make sure we did everything we could to ensure a healthy pregnancy and delivery so the book was worn out by the time Laura Lee was born.  I thought it did a good job of answering most of the questions we had that cropped up each week as the baby (Laura Lee) grew.

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I've searched Amazon and I can't find a book entitled, "What to Expect when your Cow is Expecting," but that's okay, we've had many calves born on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm, so we're prepared.  We do have a book called, "Keeping a Family Cow" that has an entire chapter dedicated to calving and we've dog-eared that book on a page or two!

This year we wanted to plan the exposure of the bull to the two momma cows so that we get a Spring baby. The livestock shows are in January - February time frame and when you are showing Dairy Cows you want them to calve just before the show so that the bag is full and 'bloomed.'  The problem with that is that the show schedule doesn't coincide with Spring grass.  We've had difficulties in years' past, getting a good stand of winter rye grass.  I will try yet again this year, but having baby calves in the winter means the momma cows are in milk and producing milk with no grass - only hay and a little feed and that puts the cows at a nutritive disadvantage.

This year we wanted to time calving with the advent of the new, rich, green, Spring grass and clover that overtakes the pasture in order to put the cows at their optimal condition for producing milk for the calves (and US!)  We have Daisy and Rosie's cycles on a calendar.  We know exactly when they'll be in standing heat and we kept Bully, our bull away from them each month until we were ready.  It wasn't easy. There are lots of hormones raging out there on the pasture.  As soon as we're positive that they are bred, we'll sell Bully.  He's a registered Jersey and has a positive A2 A2 genetic test - a positive thing.  I'd like to be nice and say that we'll be sad to see him go, but I'm not.  We're just not set up to have a bull out on our little pasture.

Rose (left), Bully (middle), and Daisy (right)

During their last cycle we let Bully 'romance' them both and we thought that he was successful in breeding them, but we didn't know for sure until we put the bull back with the girls during their "time" and no romancing occurred.  That information coupled with the fact that milk production has dropped sharply, let us know that the girls are expecting again.  Hormonal changes in a pregnant cow cause milk production to drop. That seems only logical to me that the cow will need to spend her energy growing a baby rather than making milk.

Right now, there's not much for us to do.  Cows have been calving for thousands of years (mostly) without human intervention.  We'll make sure that they have access to good grass and fresh water and access to shade.  We'll give them a little feed during milking and give them access to minerals. Yesterday, it was oppressively hot and humid.  Rosie seemed to be panting more than usual and just having a hard time, so we brought the water hose out and sprayed her down to cool her off.  It perked her up.  Other than that, we'll dry them both off a couple of months prior to calving and look forward to Spring babies - hopefully heifers!