New Baby on the Farm

Every year, our farm welcomes a few new baby calves into the world. This year, OSF Ginger of Brogue calved a little bull calf on Saturday, October 14. We still have not picked a name, but we will shortly.

Each time a new calf is welcomed to the farm, they seem to get cuter and cuter. When a new calf is born, we check to make sure the mother and calf are doing well. If the mother allows us, we try to get close to the calf to weigh and give them some bling. Each calf receives an ear tag and a tattoo so we are able to distinguish the animals from each other. When each animal has their own number, keeping records and vet information is easier as well. When we weighed this little guy, he weighed 79 pounds! The average weight of a calf at birth is 60-75 pounds. This little guy is not so little!

Unfortunately, this October seemed a little warmer than normal. When calves are born in the heat, there deems a larger risk of fly strike, when flies attack the baby calf, leading to death. We were looking out at the baby when we realized that his behind was clogged with his poop. In order to save the calf's life, we separated him from his mother and gave him a bath. It was my job to stand in the tub, holding him, while my dad cleaned him up. Usually, our farm does not have this issue, but because of the unseasonably warm temperatures, we needed to step in. The picture below shows the calf in the tub getting his bath.

Once he was cleaned up, we took him and Ginger to a seperate pasture so they could be by themselves. I took the next picture when I was feeding he and Ginger some hay. I also posted this picture on Wurzbach Farm's Facebook page and asked for some name requests. Here are some of our favorites:

Jasper

Rory

Dinggal (I thought this one was silly! His sire is Dougal and his dam is Ginger, so they combined them to make Dinggal)

Carrick

Vlad the Terrible

Fergus

Kaiser Wilhelm 2

Oscar

As you can see, we got quite a few responses. Comment your vote below for this cute guy's name!