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Meet "my" calves

post #1 of 20
1/10/10 at 9:13pm
Thread Starter 
I feed calves for a dairy farm and here are some pictures!!!






Getting rid of those pesky nose boogers. A calves work is never done




The calf barn; there are many holes between the boards.


"Hey, I'z cute right???"


Guernsey calf playing peekaboo.









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post #2 of 20
1/10/10 at 9:14pm
Thread Starter 







Guernsey again - all the others are Holsteins






Other side of the barn


Ladder into the haymow - most of the other ladders go to nowhere.
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post #3 of 20
1/10/10 at 9:14pm
Thread Starter 

Me feeding calves grain. Okay, I'm not I was faking that for the picture


My buddy




View of the "basketball court" from the haymow. There is a really old basketball hoop mounted to the wall in that section so that's why its called the basketball court. Other names for the sections: dumbo section (you can guess why), bird poop section (my favorite one...not. You can guess why its called that and why I normally wear a hat while feeding calves!


empty stalls - called the section across from the birdpoop section. Yep, pretty creative name lol!




red holstien


my running buddy


all the posts in the barn are logs...


sunset
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post #4 of 20
1/10/10 at 9:15pm
Thread Starter 



bottle feeding a calf.




The calves can be incredibly polite sometimes


By other buddy.



and that's all
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post #5 of 20
1/11/10 at 10:49am
Heh they all look awesome! I'm sure it's very satisfying to help take care of them.
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post #6 of 20
1/11/10 at 11:09am
Fab pics and those calves are so cute. xx
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post #7 of 20
1/11/10 at 11:45am
Awww, they're really adorable!
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post #8 of 20
1/11/10 at 11:53am
Such a mooooo-ving thread.

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post #9 of 20
1/11/10 at 12:28pm
Aww, I worked for a dairy steer farm when I was in HS. Brings back lots of memories some good some bad, lol. You're lucky all your calves are inside. We had individual huts for each of our calves and let me tell you how fun it was in the winter and spring, NOT. So much mud, and then there were the escapees.....
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post #10 of 20
1/11/10 at 5:52pm
Oh my gosh they are the cutest little things!!!
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post #11 of 20
1/11/10 at 6:04pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by railNtrailcwgrl View Post
Aww, I worked for a dairy steer farm when I was in HS. Brings back lots of memories some good some bad, lol. You're lucky all your calves are inside. We had individual huts for each of our calves and let me tell you how fun it was in the winter and spring, NOT. So much mud, and then there were the escapees.....
Trust me, I know what you mean. We have 5 calves in hutches most of the year was well. Have you ever tried chasing a calf through raspberry fields That is really fun...they can cut right through the rows while you can't.

Jumping into hutches to feed a newborn calf is so much fun (not)! I don't take apart the whole front, just take out the top bar and the buckets and try dive into the hutch (and avoid all puddles formed on the front). The worst part is not being able to stand up - or even be "standing" on your knees.

How is it that all hutch calves are the stupidest calves? They can't learn to drink out of a bottle holder for the life of them
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post #12 of 20
1/11/10 at 7:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by furryfriends50 View Post
Trust me, I know what you mean. We have 5 calves in hutches most of the year was well. Have you ever tried chasing a calf through raspberry fields That is really fun...they can cut right through the rows while you can't.

Jumping into hutches to feed a newborn calf is so much fun (not)! I don't take apart the whole front, just take out the top bar and the buckets and try dive into the hutch (and avoid all puddles formed on the front). The worst part is not being able to stand up - or even be "standing" on your knees.

How is it that all hutch calves are the stupidest calves? They can't learn to drink out of a bottle holder for the life of them
lol, I totally know what you're talking about now multiply that by 10 or 12 (we usually had 50-70 calves in hutches plus 10 'quansit huts' (those big silver half moon things) that housed 2-3 weaned calves until they were about 300-400lbs and big enough to move into the 'calf barn'. I'll never forget the time we had this one 'jumper' he was ALWAYS getting out. It was winter time and there is a patch of low ground near the storage trailers that always held water. Well it was frozen and the darn calf ran straight to it (despite my efforts to chase him the other way ) and all four legs went a different direction. All I could see in my head is reaching him and seeing that he 'split' himself open and trying to call my boss up an explain that he needed to come shoot a calf. My boss told me lots of horrible stories of steers getting out on the ice. Thankfully he was no worse the wear once I got him up off the ice, just a little sore. I thought for sure I was gonna get fired that night lol. Loosing a 400 pounder is never a good thing.
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post #13 of 20
1/13/10 at 12:21pm
Really lovely looking calfs, we have Holistins. I cant get over how big the ear tags are over there!!!!
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post #14 of 20
1/13/10 at 8:48pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Milk maid View Post
Really lovely looking calfs, we have Holistins. I cant get over how big the ear tags are over there!!!!
I never though of the ear tags as big, I'm guessing the ones you use over there are very small?

Partly they are big so you can read the calves number from a distance. Also their birth date, mother (and whether she was a cow or heifer), and sire are written on the tags.


Quote:
lol, I totally know what you're talking about now multiply that by 10 or 12 (we usually had 50-70 calves in hutches
My back hurts after feeding a calf in a hutch! I don't fit very well in those hutches...they don't make them tall enough (I'm 5' 11")

We have been driving down the road to see that someones entire barn of heifers/bulls got out. The owner wasn't home and the dumb things were going onto the road (which is fairly busy). Someone else had already stopped so her, my dad, and I had to get all them back into the barn. One of them had fallen in the manure pit and drowned. Apparently they have that happen all the time and have lost several that way. These cows all over a year old! That is a lot of money to lose like that...and for just being careless.

By manure "pit" I mean the cow sized holes in barns (for scraping manure into and that flows to the actual manure pit) that are supposed to always be covered up with a metal plate/grate. Well, this barn doesn't bother to cover up those... The one that is uncovered is outside of the barn and anyone/thing could fall down and get killed!
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post #15 of 20
1/14/10 at 12:13am
This shows our ear tags, not small but not as big as yours

In Europe all farms have had to update thier(slurry pits) manure pits at vast expence, dont think anyone/thing could fall into this one. This shows it just befor it was finished and had its fence put around it.
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post #16 of 20
1/15/10 at 6:57pm
Thread Starter 


That is what I mean by the "manure pit". Note: in the picture it is covered with a grate, the one that the cows fell down was uncovered so just a hole in the ground.

Here manure pits are either in tanks above ground or are in the ground. In the ground ones have to have a fence around them with a sign on each of the four signs saying: Caution: liquid manure, do not swim. Or something like that anyway! Else if someone decides to go for a swim and drowns the farm could be sued.
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post #17 of 20
1/16/10 at 12:08am
Yes its about the same here but we dont have to have a sign, there was a woman farmer last year that drowned in hers (not a nice way to go).
I am assuming that the farm you work at has a large heard, are they in all year? or just winter?
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post #18 of 20
1/16/10 at 10:42am
Your "moo" friends are lovely...
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post #19 of 20
1/26/10 at 1:35pm
Lovely calves! I love the freckle nose one.
OMG, can you imagine drowning in a manure tank?
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post #20 of 20
1/27/10 at 6:22pm
They are soooo cute!!
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