Twins!

A couple of our White Parks have been looking like they were due to give birth soon (I will spare you the details). This was a bit concerning to me because they were not suppose to be due until early May. The man we bought them off of seemed pretty sure of his dates. A vet we know said that the calf would not make it if is were born this early (if in fact the early May date was correct). Well my father in law called this afternoon and said that we had a calf and he/she looked healthy. We darted right over there to check it out. Sure enough there stood the sweetest looking little calf ever. It was hard to see because the mama cow gave birth in the trees/brush, but all looked well. We left to get Leah from school. Well about 6:00 this evening, Ryan called and said my brother in laws (who also have cattle over there) found another White Park calf in brush. At first they thought maybe another one of our girls had given birth, but it was obvious that the other 3 were still pregnant. Apparently our new mama gave birth to twins. My brother in law thought the baby was trash that had blow into the field and when he checked it out, there she was.

So we have twin girls, but there is a problem, the mama wants nothing to do with the extra calf. We think she probably dropped her first and maybe didn't even realize she did and went along her merry way. She probably then gave birth to baby #2 and bonded with that one. The "extra" calf stood and walked on its own and tried to nurse everything in the field with udders. It got knocked around pretty hard. It also tried multiple times to nurse on its mama and she wouldn't have anything to do with her. By the time I got to my father in law's the baby had been taken to the barn. Ryan went to TSC and bought "formula" for the baby. He and Jason (the brother in law that owns the White Parks with us) finally got the baby to drink the bottle and now she is here. No, our barn is not up yet, but we cleaned out the extra side of our chicken coop for her. It is plenty of room for now.

She is adorable. I will post a picture in the next couple days.

Julie