calving update

This last week has been an absolute blur!  And for that reason, I must apologize for the absence of blogging.  Since my last blog, lots of babies have been born and Chasen has been doing a fantabulous job of sending me pictures of most of them. 

This little girl was born in the field.  It was a nice sunny day, so I guess she decided it was time. Chasen found her while feeding the cows in the afternoon and then brought her up to the barn so she could get out of the wind for the night.  The next morning he went to check on her and she was no longer in the pen with her mom.  She had escaped (somehow) underneath the calving pen gate and was chilling in the cooler/wash room--Chasen thinks she is a natural show heifer in the making haha.  I think she is just a curious adorable little thing!

Now I am not trying to be biased, but this is probably my favorite calf born yet!  I absolutely love love love blazed face cattle and am so pumped that this little girl is 1/2 Simmental!! I can't wait to see her when I go back to farm this weekend! 

The final calf picture is a picture of a special calf I named Leroy.  During his gestation, Leroy did not have enough space to develop his front leg properly.  So when he was born Leroy had trouble standing on his front leg and Chasen needed to "prop" him up on a bale so he could get to his moms udder.  Which by the way, calving pens are the coolest thing since sliced bread.  They are so helpful during the calving process, whether that be pulling a calf, or making sure they get their first drink full of colostrum.  Anyway, now that I got my sales pitch in for calving pens, Leroy now has a splint, with HOT PINK tape, on his front leg to help stabilize his pastern.  He is able to get around pretty good by himself, but we are going to keep him up at the house until he gets a bit stronger.  I wish you could see his face in this picture because he is about as cute as the blazed face calf....but not quite :)

Aside from calving and business on the farm, I myself have been quite a busy girl.  Last week I traveled to DC for the Farm Animal Integrated Research (FAIR) conference.  I had such a blast and hope to share my trip and conference experience with you sometime later this week. This is a picture of all of the grad students I got to work with at the conference.  They were all great and I learned so much from all of them!!  The picture was taken at the Agriculture Research Station in Beltsville, MD.  It was quite windy when we took the picture so you can find me by looking for the hot mess with wind tossed hair, haha.  Or at least that is how I like to refer to myself in this pic :)