Surrey Homes | SH97 | February 2023 | Education Supplement inside

Jane Howard looks forward
to welcoming the first of
this year’s new arrivals
It’s extraordinary how much
lighter the evenings are now
than they were at Christmas.
I know that’s how it works but it’s
always surprising and thrilling. And
along with the first snowdrops and
crocuses there’s also lots of new life about
to arrive on the farm to get excited about.
The bull went out with the cows last May and
ran with them for a couple of months. We used
to be much more relaxed about leaving him with the
girls for a long lazy summer of love, but we learnt the
hard way and found ourselves calving for months on
end. Now he goes in in May and out by July, back to a
bachelor existence, which means we will only be calving
for a couple of months – quite long enough to be keeping
a 24 hour vigil to make sure everything goes smoothly.
All the cows were pregnancy tested in August and
all that information is recorded in my
Herdwatch app, so a quick glance at the
phone and I can easily tell which order
they will calve in. The first sign that a cow
is going into labour is a hunched back
and a tail held out at a strange angle –
she looks and feels very uncomfortable.
That might be all that happens for a few
hours before the water bag appears and
then, if all is well, a pair of hooves and
a nose – an indication that everything
is in the right position-- and it will be
born without the need for assistance.
But even then the job isn’t over.
However deep and clean the bed of
straw, a cow shed is far from hygienic,
and the calf will need good immunity from the moment
it arrives. This comes from the mother’s colostrum,
the first thick milk that is stuffed with antibodies and
in the first few hours they must consume at least two
litres -- without which their future is precarious.
So a few minutes after she’s given birth the cow
needs to stand up and start vigorously licking
her calf dry – it’s where the saying lick into shape
comes from – and then start pushing it to get up
and nudging it into position to find her udder.
All the cows were
pregnancy tested
in August and all
that information
is recorded in my
Herdwatch app, so a
quick glance at the
phone and I can easily
tell which order they
will calve in
An older experienced cow will know exactly what
needs to be done and she’ll encourage it every step of
the way but sometimes the heifers (first time mums)
are far from impressed by the effort of giving birth
and see no good reason to pursue motherhood and
its associated responsibilities any
further, thank you very much.
So imagine, it’s three in the morning
you’ve pulled and tugged a healthy calf
into the world, all is well and it’s time
for a cup of tea. It’s sooo annoying then
to return half an hour later to discover
the wet, confused and shivering calf
still lying where it was born while its
mother is nonchalantly munching hay
with the other cows with a ‘nothing
to do with me’ attitude. Grrr.
What then follows is an hour of catching
the heifer and keeping her restrained
behind a gate while trying to get a slippery,
wet, heavy (about 40kg) calf to stand
up and find the udder through the railings – and sorry,
but the bull calves are always far lazier than the girls and
would far sooner just expire! Frequently, in an attempt
to squirt the milk into the calves mouth, everything –
including me – gets covered in sticky yellow colostrum
(though it’s apparently very good for the skin) and I
wonder why I gave up the day job. But then eventually it
happens and nothing, absolutely nothing, sounds better
that an enthusiastic slurp slurp slurp with the heifer gently
mooing encouragement to her new arrival. Happy days.
Find out more about daily life at Coopers Farm by visiting coopersfarmstonegate.co.uk
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