What a night....
We've had three cross bred heifers carrying pedigree embryos, all due on 22nd. Two heifers were carrying full siblings and yesterday evening, 394 kicked off. As we fully expected c-sections for all of them, vets were duly called and while we're awaiting for them to arrive, Phil sticks his hand in to check on presentation, size of calf etc, just in case there's a chance of her calving naturally.
As Charlotte vet arrives, Phil is looking a bit embarrassed and says he reckons it's a normal job. Charlotte checks and confirms and so they do in fact pull off a very nice bull calf with a pretty co-operative heifer being nice and quiet. So our brand new, designed by Phil and Luko, c-section crate was still unchristened. The other two expectant heifers are watching all this and we glance up and Charlotte (stupidly!) says that at least the other two don't look like calving.
Famous last words... just as Charlotte's leaving at 7.00pm both Phil and I look at 409 and warn Charlotte that she'd better not bank on a full night's sleep..
Everyone disappears and I'm left watching Cow TV for the duration. At 11pm, I call Phil, tell him he's better come back and take a look and after he watches her a bit, he agrees it's time to call Veterinary again. Heifer in crate, hand up to check and this time, Phil reckons it's definitely a c-section, so that's the second vet called as well and we swing into the regular procedure 'cos we getting to be old hands at this!
After a lot of manoeuvring, Charlotte (who is a sickeningly slim 30 yo) manages to get the hock and foot and between her and Simon vet, they manage to get the feet out far enough for Phil to safely start to life without compromising the sterile area of the wound.
Calf goes straight up and out (no mean feat, they weigh a lot, 30 - 40kg!!) and lands full of vigour. Charlotte puts her hand back in to reposition the uterus before stitiching, goes a bit quiet and then yells "There's another one!!" Sure enough, we end up with twin identical heifers. Bearing in mind this was an embryo implant on a surrogate, this isn't that usual.
Aftr a rocky night, 409 has turned out to be a superb mum, accepting both calves very quickly after initially wanting to beat the crap out of them (due to the pain of the c-section and the delay in the hormones kicking in) while 394's calf is exceptionally slow to get going and she isn't one bit interested in him, which is unusual after a natural calving.
So now we've got to think up some names for them beginning with 'C' - we've already got a Chaz, I've reserved Chunky Monkey and Chubby Chequer for any bull calves we get that have some colour (these three are all pure white Belgian Blues !) and definitely want a Curvaceous but those names will probably go on the next six we have due in September/December.
So any clever suggestions please??
We've had three cross bred heifers carrying pedigree embryos, all due on 22nd. Two heifers were carrying full siblings and yesterday evening, 394 kicked off. As we fully expected c-sections for all of them, vets were duly called and while we're awaiting for them to arrive, Phil sticks his hand in to check on presentation, size of calf etc, just in case there's a chance of her calving naturally.
As Charlotte vet arrives, Phil is looking a bit embarrassed and says he reckons it's a normal job. Charlotte checks and confirms and so they do in fact pull off a very nice bull calf with a pretty co-operative heifer being nice and quiet. So our brand new, designed by Phil and Luko, c-section crate was still unchristened. The other two expectant heifers are watching all this and we glance up and Charlotte (stupidly!) says that at least the other two don't look like calving.
Famous last words... just as Charlotte's leaving at 7.00pm both Phil and I look at 409 and warn Charlotte that she'd better not bank on a full night's sleep..
Everyone disappears and I'm left watching Cow TV for the duration. At 11pm, I call Phil, tell him he's better come back and take a look and after he watches her a bit, he agrees it's time to call Veterinary again. Heifer in crate, hand up to check and this time, Phil reckons it's definitely a c-section, so that's the second vet called as well and we swing into the regular procedure 'cos we getting to be old hands at this!
After a lot of manoeuvring, Charlotte (who is a sickeningly slim 30 yo) manages to get the hock and foot and between her and Simon vet, they manage to get the feet out far enough for Phil to safely start to life without compromising the sterile area of the wound.
Calf goes straight up and out (no mean feat, they weigh a lot, 30 - 40kg!!) and lands full of vigour. Charlotte puts her hand back in to reposition the uterus before stitiching, goes a bit quiet and then yells "There's another one!!" Sure enough, we end up with twin identical heifers. Bearing in mind this was an embryo implant on a surrogate, this isn't that usual.
Aftr a rocky night, 409 has turned out to be a superb mum, accepting both calves very quickly after initially wanting to beat the crap out of them (due to the pain of the c-section and the delay in the hormones kicking in) while 394's calf is exceptionally slow to get going and she isn't one bit interested in him, which is unusual after a natural calving.
So now we've got to think up some names for them beginning with 'C' - we've already got a Chaz, I've reserved Chunky Monkey and Chubby Chequer for any bull calves we get that have some colour (these three are all pure white Belgian Blues !) and definitely want a Curvaceous but those names will probably go on the next six we have due in September/December.
So any clever suggestions please??
:luv: :luv: