When it is time to give birth cows will do just about anything to calf where they were birthed. I have watched this firsthand for over ten years now. Why is this? I don’t have a PHD in cow phycology but I’m leaning towards instinct versus memory recall. I didn’t have the memory of my birth to take me on a trip to New Orleans when my first or for that matter second daughter was born. Even though my eldest daughter was born during Mardi Gras just like I had.
It didn’t invoke a memory of funky costumes, colorful beads, or itching to dance in the streets during the foot parades engulfing the narrow streets of the city. If I had relied on memories of my birthing experience it would include the doctor being interrupted from his party in the French Quarter, during the wee hours of the morning, where he lived. The doctor not having enough time to change out of his white suit and white suede dancing shoes to deliver me. Odors of alcohol and cigars lingering on him. And of course, his loud barking orders to the nurses in regards to my screaming mother, “put her out”!
Instead, my earliest memories take me back to around 3 years of age. They are like bursts of pictures bouncing from image to image in my head. They are bright and vivid and then suddenly cloudy and diminished leaving me questioning if they are real memories at all.
I pondered this quite a bit last year as I held my grandson and introduced him to some of the new calves. He was happy, giggly, and squirmy as he met the calves face to face. They smelled him. He tried to grab hold of their ears and pet them as he did his kitty cats at home.
He didn’t look at me like, “what grandma – I wasn’t born here.” The calf he was petting like all the other ones before her, wouldn’t come back to the barn alcove to have her calves someday. No, if allowed to, she would traipse a half a mile from the barnyard to the overflowing creek banks under the low-lying brush surrounded by wild thorny rose bushes to give birth. Yes, I would stake my fortune on it. If I had a fortune. I am, after all, in the cattle business and anything in agriculture will always be cents on the dollar.
The oldest cow of the herd was born on December 17th, 2010. It was my first day experiencing cow births on the job. She was birthed right next to the lower barn’s green paddock gate. She was covered in muck as she dropped in a wet half snow, half rain, fully muddy and boggy, water-soaked ground right at 5pm during feeding time.
Cows that were stuck outside the gate were blocked from entering to get their hay. This caused quite a cow jam until her mother nudged her to stand. On wobbly little legs she moved about fifteen feet until they were out of the way of the cow traffic.
Noel has hundreds of acres to birth her calves on and yet all eight of them have been born within 50-100 feet of that green gate. Five of them right beside it. Does that green gate have a special memory for Noel? I highly doubt it. But her instinct pulls her towards that green gate each calving time. It is a place where she feels at peace and she finds comfort in the familiarity of it. To my recollection I have never seen her by that gate any other time of the year.
Calving in February of 2019 brought such challenges, physical endurances, and sorrows. This year the same subzero temperatures, wind chill factors, snow falling, and ice on the ground were predicted during calving. At this prediction we decided to shut the gates to open pastures and restrict the pregnant cows to a more modest but manageable ten acre parcel adjacent to the barnyards.
We wanted to avoid snowmobile trips out to the back forty late in the night to rescue a calf and cow in three plus feet of snow. We didn’t want to be scooping half frozen calf’s, minutes after birth, in howling subzero winds off the ground. Nor must bring the calves inside the ranch house and warm them by the old woodstove away from their mothers. And we especially didn’t want to have to make a temporary calf morgue in the shed as the relentless weather conditions stole 20% of our calves despite our hard work round the clock along with all the other ranchers in the area.
Some of the cows have been a little indignant about this change and waited at the exterior gates for quite some time before choosing an alternate birthing area. There was plenty of vastly different terrains in the ten-acre parcel. Acres that housed tree lined hills with massive Ponderosa Pines. Low-lying swale grass next to the swale creek and level ground with frozen grass. Or even for some of their preferences wind blocks right next to the different barns and feeding areas.
They should have appreciated the fresh water sources including a heated trough where they didn’t have to break thru the ice. The abundance of barley straw to bed down on. Lights, sturdy fences, and humans that kept the predators away unlike the vulnerability of them out in the pastures. But NO, at least half of them were not appreciative at ALL…Cows. After all they had their birthing instincts, and they did not like us changing them.
However, there is a couple of the cows, one in particular, SnowLily, that almost smiled when I shut the gates off to the open pastures. She had been born in the paddock between the ranch house and the upper barn some seven years ago. Her mom was recuperating from a sore hoof at the time. SnowLily now expects to deliver each of her calves in that very spot.
I had that paddock closed off to allow for an injury or a calf that might need extra care. Each day the past week SnowLily has stood and starred at the closed gate to what she must consider her “utopia” birthing area. Most days I find that she is not her normal friendly self but instead she looks at me like a llama wanting to spit at me.
Then as luck would have it for SnowLily we had a calf born a few days ago that needed a bit of extra special care for the night. When we were finished with the paddock no one shut the gate. So, I was not a bit surprised to find SnowLily in there last night in the exact spot she was born. She had waited to give birth in that exact spot. She was content and resting with her new little heifer calf when I came in to do evening chores. SnowLily had certainly shown the cow whisperer.
As I did my midnight check of the cows last night, I took in the crisp, clear, and unusually calm night air in. The sky illuminated every constellation visibly. The moon casting just enough light to see the shadows of the cows stationed around the calves who were sleeping soundly in the barnyard. I thought, yes, this is the life.
I will never tire of the calving season or the cows themselves. It all brings me such peace in the busy world. I’m sure this night that they feel the same as I. They have such trust for me as I move about them and none of them stir. They feel safe and at peace also. I walk past the two cows left to calf and I tell them softly it will be okay even though I’m not letting them out.
If I did their instincts will take one to the creek bed a half a mile out or the other to the large pasture down the road. Instead, in this new set up they will be safe where I can assist quickly if needed. As I turn to head out of the barnyard the yip, yip, yip of a coyote is heard on the ridgeline behind me, and one calls back from somewhere farther away.
Yes, the cows are safe for the night, and I know I will sleep well too. My instincts have guided me to do what’s best on the cows behalf. Hopefully in the morning there will be time enough to deal with the pesky ravens that have flown in and made a nuisance of themselves tormenting the young calves.
