Surrey Homes | SH29 | March 2017 | Fashion supplement inside

Jane Howard’s
Fables from the Farm
The heifers go straight to the front of the queue when calving starts
Excitement is rising at Coopers
Farm. It’s nine months now since
George the bull went out with the
cows and so not surprisingly we’re about
to start calving again. Before it kicks off,
the prospect of leaving a warm bed in the
middle of the night to trudge down to
the barn is still a memory rather than a
chilly reality and spirits are high.
I’ve prepared everything I need –
lubricant, ropes and iodine – so I just
need one of them to get on with it. We
always calve the heifers (the first-time
mums) first. Not only do they take
longer in labour, but they
are also more likely to need
assistance to deliver their
calf. Calves should come out
feet and head first, effectively
diving into the world. Once
the hooves appear and
having checked they are
front ones, if things don’t
progress it’s just a case of putting ropes
round their fetlocks and pulling as mum
pushes. However, often problems arise
because the calf is coming backwards,
upside down, sideways or with a foot
or head back in which case some clever
manipulation is required.
All too technical to describe here but,
once the business is done and hopefully
there’s a healthy calf on the ground, you
might imagine you could happily shuffle
back to that cosy bed. But oh no, the lot
of the bovine midwife is far from over.
Newborn calves are delivered into
“Sussex cows
will carry on
producing healthy
calves well into
their teens.”
a world that is far from hygienic – no
sterilised bottles for them. Immunity
comes from their mother’s colostrum –
the first thick milk which is stuffed with
antibodies – but the problem is they
can only absorb their full quota for the
first six or seven hours after being born.
After that, the lining of their gut changes
and they can no longer absorb the big
antibody molecules. So in the first few
hours they must consume about 2½
litres of colostrum and if they don’t then
the likelihood of them succumbing to
infection in the weeks ahead is high.
So imagine, dear reader,
it’s three in the morning,
you’ve pulled and tugged
the calf into the world
and left it with mum to
lick dry and encourage
to drink while you have
a cup of tea. It’s sooo
annoying then to return
to the shed to discover nothing has
happened, the wet calf is still lying where
you left it and the mother is nonchalantly
munching hay as though nothing much
has happened. This is most common
with heifers who are far from impressed
by the effort of giving birth and see no
good reason to pursue motherhood and
its associated responsibilities any further.
What then follows is an hour or so
of getting a slippery, wet, heavy (about
50kg) calf to stand up and then, crablike,
the two of you shuffle slowly toward
the udder of said heifer. By giving her a
bucket of grub you usually have about
10 minutes – when she’s more interested
in food than kicking you away – to get
the calf on and sucking. Colostrum is
extraordinary stuff, and once the feeble
calf has had a decent slug it acquires
super strength which enables it to persist
with mum who hopefully takes line of
least resistance and lets it drink.
Once all the heifers are done and
dusted the cows start calving. Sussex
cows will carry on producing healthy
calves well into their teens. Once you’ve
had six or seven calves, number eight is
likely to pop out fairly quickly and mum
also knows what is expected and will
immediately get on with the job-in-hand.
Happy days!
Follow Jane Howard – and the farm
– on Instagram @coopersfarm
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