Sad and Lonely Calves

On our second farm, we had 'field cows' (my uneducated name for them), mama cows that lived in the fields all summer and had their calves there.  In the fall, we would bring all of them into the barn for the winter.  Not a bad life...outside all summer and in the warmer barn with fresh straw all winter.  Except for one, little thing...we separated the calves from their mamas.   After all, they're not babies anymore and they get fed differently.  They're also too small to be in a pen with pushing, shoving adults more than twice their size who will actually trample them to death and not even notice.  As with all mothers, nursing must to come to an end someday!  Those poor mothers need the winter to recuperate!  (That's just my feminine take on it!)  There is, after all, another baby on the way that mama needs to get physically ready for. 

Well, calves separated from their mamas bawl and bawl and bawl and...on and on.  It's actually an awful ruckus that sounds like they're being slowly tortured (I guess they kind of are!) and murdered.  It can go on for up to 2 weeks and uneducated neighbors would likely call the animal welfare.  Thank goodness we had farmer neighbors and not city folk on acreages.  Because we did this in the fall, they were long over it before the calves were sold in the spring so the new owners did not have to put up with it. 

Which brings me to the here and now.  Yesterday we bought 8 medium-sized calves and 18 smaller ones.  A reliable buyer bought them for us and delivered them as our little horse trailer would never do the job and DH works full time and can't get to the stock yards to buy his own calves.

 This is more like the truck and trailer that we need. 

New calves unloading. 

 Ol' Blue Eyes!

Some of the calves that we bought yesterday are just fine, as were the 12 that we bought last week.  Some, however, were not weaned and it sure is noticeable which ones are which.  It may not show up at the stockyards as all the calves are upset anyway and don't mind letting anyone who's passing by know.  Our calves are usually very quiet, not even a cough or a moo.  They have everything that they need, fresh straw, water, feed and moo moo companionship. 

The noisy calves all come from the same owner, Farmer R.  DH reminded me that last year, we bought 44 calves from Farmer R. and it was the same bull.  Calves bawling for 2 weeks just because Farmer R. is too lazy to do the weaning himself.  I feel that it's pretty cruel to wean the little ones, load them onto - and unload them from - a trailer ('cuz they like that so much - NOT), put them in holding pens at the stockyards, parade them around the selling pen then off to a totally strange barn where they have to figure out the feed and water situation for themselves...all in 1 day.  The selling farmer could have helped alleviate some of the stress by doing the weaning process ahead of time and getting it out of the way.

This isn't just an emotional thing either.  Unweaned calves do not do as well because of the emotional and physical stress and lose a fair bit of weight.  Say a calf weighs 500 lbs.  The buying farmer pays for every one of those pounds then the unweaned calf loses, say, 50 lbs.  The buying farmer paid for 50 lbs. that he's no longer getting and now has to pay for feed for that calf for quite a while (starting after the calf finally calms down) to put that weight back on and then the calf will finally start to gain real weight.  (Just picking random numbers here.)

The selling farmer hurts himself in the long run as this is a business that is very much dependent upon word of mouth and your reputation as a seller is everything.  DH informed our buyer to never deal with Farmer R. again.  Famers will always return to reputable sellers and likewise avoid the disrespectful selling farmers forever.

You know it's cold in the barn when you can see his breath.

 Some of the happy campers.

A few of the lost and lonely little souls protesting.