Being born in a city of five million, I didn’t expect that a day would come when I would realize that I love farming with all my heart and would actually wait for calving season to come. Now it's here, and our amazing yearly adventure has begun.
I can’t say that I just found something that completely fits me (because it definitely doesn’t), but there is so much in it. For me, calving season turned out to be a unique time of the year when a person watching mama-cows gets a chance to experience a full range of emotions without travelling or doing anything special, but just by staying with them.
Every new adventure starts when you notice that one of the cows is restless. Its tail goes up and the cow starts almost dancing. It usually finds a spot away from the rest of the herd (with the exception of some party animals, which prefer to have a calf right in the middle, where they might be stepped on). As soon as you see one like that, you get a bit of anxiety, which grows as the process proceeds. The anxiety is instantly high if it’s a heifer, with which you never know what to expect.
We start calving in March when the nights are still cold and there is often snow on the ground, so we usually take cows that are calving into a barn. Once that is done, your curiosity kicks in. Even though I’ve watched them many times, I still find the appearance of a calf miraculous. You have to leave the future mama alone, but you come to check on her every so often. The process is never easy, so I always feel the urge to support and cheer them. I talk to them when I come into the barn, but I don’t think they really care at that stage. They are completely focused on the process, in most cases regulated by their instincts.
How many times when waters broke and a calf started coming, I caught myself almost praying to see its hooves first. It means that the animal is laying properly and a cow should be fine. At that point, you start watching the time, and I usually start cheering for them even more (you know, like in movies, “Push, push girl!” type of in this case useless support).
It’s exciting to see a calf on the ground. You rush there to ensure that its nose is free. It’s even more exciting and relieving to see it making its first breath. But then you step back and get worried again, watching the cow’s reaction to the new circumstance, laying on the ground in front of her.
Some mamas are amazing, they care about their calves, but they also know that we are there to help (at least I want to believe that), so they don’t fight. With these ones you usually feel really happy. Already at this point, you pretty much know that everything will be fine with them. They’ll be on their own, and you’ll just watch the calf growing
(unless the calf is really silly and you end up teaching it where and how to get milk).
Others don’t care much about their babies. They’ve been in labour for so long, that they leave their poor little wet and shivering nubbles and go eat, and then they forget that they had a baby. These ones may be a lot of work. If they don’t take the calf, it may take days of trying to make the silly mama believe that it’s actually her calf.
In the meantime, the calf stays in the barn and almost becomes a pet. It knows that you are now a source of milk, so it comes running when it sees you, it looks for milk while you are making it, pushing and bunting (I’m quite happy that I don’t have any sensitive areas in their reach zone, they bunt hard and quite unexpectedly). You pet and play with it, and very quickly you become best friends. The level of sweetness is through the roof. They are almost like therapy. I come to the barn sad and tired and leave happy and calm.
But there is also the third type of mamas. When they calf their ancient instincts wake up and all of a sudden, they turn into vicious monsters that will be trying to mow you over for at least the next few days.
I was walking through a corral the other day when out of a corner of my eye I noticed a cow that turned my way and instantly started chasing me. I think I was faster than the speed of light. Despite the physics laws, I flew up the windbreaker and only then turned around. The cow had left after it chased me far enough from her calf. I think I had more adrenaline in my blood than after jumping out of a plane with a parachute.
But no matter what kind of mamas they are, watching calves get bigger and stronger every day is a joy. Calving is a primitive process, but it takes you on an emotional rollercoaster and it is also so natural, that once you are into it you instantly feel that you are doing something good.
