Rusti Mae

On February 4th, we ended up with a bottle calf cause her mama wouldn’t take her….she has a deep, brick red mixed with a little bit of brown coloring, so we named her Rusti Mae (it took three of us to come up with that!). Rusti was a spitfire and definitely kept us on our toes! There was a bale of straw in the barn, and she had no problem chasing me around that, attempt to jump over it to get me from time to time. That is, until she would do some splits like Bambi did on the ice.

A couple weeks later (just last week), a new heifer lost her calf to natural causes, so Dad and Ethan set about pairing Rusti with a new mama. Whenever we can do this it helps a heifer gain some mama cow “instinct,” but it also means we don’t have to bottle feed a feisty little monster (because let’s be real, they’re cute until they get hungry). Rusti Mae and her new mama were turned out to pasture on Monday and are doing great together!

In total we have, well, a lot of calves. I am unsure of the exact number because I haven’t asked recently, but I know as of this weekend we were closer to fifty than not. Last Friday there were seven calves born in one day! Dad’s been tracking the barometric pressure to see if that gives an indication of when cows are calving. So far his data indicates that the lower the pressure the more cows calve. Interesting stuff right there….

Update, 3/2/19: Mom can go up to Rusti Mae when she's in the pasture and pet and rub her down without too many protests from her new mama.