Brian Moore
Moderator
Just got back from a couple of weeks on holiday in Applecross, Scotland. My wife's brother has a home there and some land and a small herd of highland cattle.
In March he found an abandoned calf. He estimates it was about 5 days old. It was near death but he brought it home with him and bottle-fed it. It has responded very well. Since he brought it home it has resided in the glebe adjacent to his home (a former manse).
The calf--which he has called Calfie--has teeth now so he is eating grass but he is still bottle-fed three times a day (and will be for another ten weeks or so).
One of our tasks was to bring another (older) calf from the herd down to be a companion to Calfie so that he could bond with another of his herd and learn to be a bovine. (He thinks he's a dog.)
Isolating the second calf required that we drive the herd from the hills to a pasture a mile or so distant. (We were lucky on the morning of the herding that the herd hadn't wandered too far into the hills.) Then, we had to herd the herd through a pen one or two at a time until we could isolate the calf who was destined to be Calfie's companion.
There were eight of us and Bailey, my brother-in-law's labrador, on the cattle drive. We managed the job in a couple of hours. But there was one cow who refused to move. Eventually she followed the herd, but we wondered for a long while whether she would cooperate.
We climb into the hills
And we climb some more
Bailey spots the cow that wouldn't move
Mark (my brother-in-law), Bailey and the cow that wouldn't move
She still refuses to move
Herding some of the others
She watches as most of us go by
She turns to observe
She continues to observe
And she continues to observe
Well,..to our relief she eventually joined the rest of the herd in our walk along the road to the pasture with the pen.
We got the target calf isolated and into the trailer and hauled her down to join Calfie. The next task was to load Calfie into the same trailer and then take both of them to fenced in field where they could spend the next few weeks together bonding.
However, we had some excitement. Before we got Calfie loaded up the target calf, spooked by the noise of the trailer gate opening, jumped out through a window in the trailer, which had been opened to feed her some grass. If we hadn't witnessed it we would scarcely have believed it possible. Fortunately she walked into the walled enclosure of the local Church of Scotland, which served good purpose as a corral until we could get the halter on her and coax her back into the trailer. Unofficially her name is now Poptart.
I haven't developed all my film. If I have pictures of Calfie and Poptart I'll post them if there is interest.
These shots were from my Olympus XA3 and Arista EDU 400 film.
In March he found an abandoned calf. He estimates it was about 5 days old. It was near death but he brought it home with him and bottle-fed it. It has responded very well. Since he brought it home it has resided in the glebe adjacent to his home (a former manse).
The calf--which he has called Calfie--has teeth now so he is eating grass but he is still bottle-fed three times a day (and will be for another ten weeks or so).
One of our tasks was to bring another (older) calf from the herd down to be a companion to Calfie so that he could bond with another of his herd and learn to be a bovine. (He thinks he's a dog.)
Isolating the second calf required that we drive the herd from the hills to a pasture a mile or so distant. (We were lucky on the morning of the herding that the herd hadn't wandered too far into the hills.) Then, we had to herd the herd through a pen one or two at a time until we could isolate the calf who was destined to be Calfie's companion.
There were eight of us and Bailey, my brother-in-law's labrador, on the cattle drive. We managed the job in a couple of hours. But there was one cow who refused to move. Eventually she followed the herd, but we wondered for a long while whether she would cooperate.
We climb into the hills
And we climb some more
Bailey spots the cow that wouldn't move
Mark (my brother-in-law), Bailey and the cow that wouldn't move
She still refuses to move
Herding some of the others
She watches as most of us go by
She turns to observe
She continues to observe
And she continues to observe
Well,..to our relief she eventually joined the rest of the herd in our walk along the road to the pasture with the pen.
We got the target calf isolated and into the trailer and hauled her down to join Calfie. The next task was to load Calfie into the same trailer and then take both of them to fenced in field where they could spend the next few weeks together bonding.
However, we had some excitement. Before we got Calfie loaded up the target calf, spooked by the noise of the trailer gate opening, jumped out through a window in the trailer, which had been opened to feed her some grass. If we hadn't witnessed it we would scarcely have believed it possible. Fortunately she walked into the walled enclosure of the local Church of Scotland, which served good purpose as a corral until we could get the halter on her and coax her back into the trailer. Unofficially her name is now Poptart.
I haven't developed all my film. If I have pictures of Calfie and Poptart I'll post them if there is interest.
These shots were from my Olympus XA3 and Arista EDU 400 film.
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