Good days ... and better

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Yesterday we got our first calf of the year.  The mother is Hargit and it is her fourth calf with no dramas.  I got progress reports by email - including that it was 7 degrees and hailing in the hours after she was born.

It was still very cold when I got home and all I did was look out into the paddock.  I couldn't see it so wondered if it was ok.  There was a different explanation which became obvious this morning.  I went to shift the cattle at 7 am and the calf was there and looking good and strong.  I let the cattle through into the next area that has long thick pasture including phalaris over a metre high.  The calf promptly disappeared.  I could see where Hargit was, a little separate from the others, but from less that 10 metres there was no sign of the calf.  Good instincts if there were to be predators around - particularly as Hargit was keeping a careful eye on me and the dog.   

Thursday was not so good.  We currently have six Dorper ewes.  Five lambed a few weeks ago.  I had begun to wonder whether the other had lambed and lost it as her udder looked full.  Then Kristina came in saying "The last ewe is lambing".  By the time I got out to it an hour or two later, it had two lambs, but both dead.  With only six animals those two were the difference between a lambing percentage of 117% and one of 83%.  I could have gone straight out, but I don't want to have to lamb ewes or calve cows.  I'm prepared to cull for this.  I have to concede to wondering about the longer term wisdom of human obstetric practises.  

We now have a second Maremma pup and are putting quite a bit of time into their training.  Polo has got shifted onto the ewes and lambs - as he is the more confident animal.  Josie is a little bitch - and a bit of a sook.  She has got the chickens to look after.  She was a week or two younger than Polo when she came home - and the first to leave the litter.  Inevitably it must have been a bit stressful going from 6 litter mates to a paddock.  We are feeding them 3 times a day and walk them around the boundaries of their area before each feed - plus a bit of supervised contact with the animals they are being bonded to.  It's quite a time consuming task - and Kristina is doing most of the work.  It's a bit sobering to know that they won't be fully trained as guardian dogs for more than a year.
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