Hello from Eastern Europe

No fertilizer. We do spread manure on some fields sometimes. But if it'll be a drought it won't help. Had some years when it was too dry for the first grass and barely made a half of feed we usually make on normal year from the first cut.

They are far from starved 😅 our grazing season starts around the first half of May in good years, but for the past couple years it started at the end of May. While there are still freezing temperature there won't be much of grass growth.

A pic from last year. Taken on the 12th of May.

Have a special heifer born today. From a 10years old cow, which is in the top5 best performing herd cows. She only had a heifer once- died at birth unfortunatelly. Well, finally, another heifer was born from her. 287days gestation, around 50kg (will weigh abit later), sired by VRB bull.

The last pic of the sire.

It's just how it is here. Nothing unusual 😅 always have to move cattle out abit earlier, when grass is very tiny, because that if you move them out when there is plenty of grass, it'll be overgrown real fast.

Heifer pen got some action yesterday. The first heifer calved a charolais sired bull calf. Very quick and easy calving. 276 days gestation, around 40kg calf. Heifer herself is sired by Tweeddale Lookout, out of limxcharx cow. Nice to see that milk has been improved abit.

Next calves from heifers are due on 12th and 14th. Calves will be by Tweeddale Lennox and Tomschoice Onslow.

Tweeddale Lookout is the sire of the cow, but not the calf. Had several calves from Lookout. Most bulls were 50+kg, heaviest being 64kg. Heaviest heifer was from 3/4 char cow- 53kg, all other were in 37-45kg range. Most born unassisted, but had a couple abit too big for their moms to calve alone. Good growth rates though. Leaving his daughters with a hope that they'll be good calvers and milkers as his numbers suggest. So far seems good. Will have one more his daughter calving with a lim calf after a good month.

Heifer did calve her calf herself. Very quickly too. Has bigger udder than her dam had at her first calving.

It's getting warmer and greener every day. Still get some frost during the night, so grass can't grow fast.

Had some hard day yesterday. First saw cows attacking a beaver, which decided to walk in their pasture. After all of the commotion saw that one of the cows started showing signs of belly pain. After closer inspection it appeared that she had a ruptured peritoneum and her intestines were out.

The worst part is that she still had 21 days until her due date. Plus she was due only with her second calf.

Decided to do a c-section and try to fix her peritoneum.

The whole procedure took almost 6hours.

Most of her intestines were out. The hole actually wasn't big.

The calf is very decent size for her gestation. Teeth aren't fully formed, but already there. She's sleeping almost all the time, sometimes waking up for a couple minutes.

The cow is doing pretty decent. Eating and drinking. Has a lot of fluids in the cavity left by intestines. Walking around her pen abit.

Also had a heifer calving yesterday in the evening. Some assistance with a jack, but both were bright and doing well right after birth.

Unfortunatelly, both calf and cow passed away. Calf yesterday. She has vomited all of the colostrum we gave her, so her stomack most likely wasn't working, wasn't passing any stool. She was sleeping almost all the time, walking up for a couple minutes and then back to sleep. Not walking, just lifting her head and bawling abit. The cow passed away this night. She wasn't defecating, so there was something wrong inside.

The calf is by Tweeddale Lennox. Weighed yesterday, 54kg. Luckily not much of muscles.

Got the first group of cows out on grass yesterday. Very cold spring, so not much of grass growth.

Let out cows with calves at foot (except three recently calved) and all due by the end of June. Those three, first calf heifers and cows due past the end of June will be another group. Going to move them on grass soon too, but first they had to spend a couple days together as just let first calf heifers in to the cows pasture.

The fourth day with a cow calving. Today had a heifer calved. Heifer is sired by Tweeddale Lookout and the calf is by Tomschoice Onslow. 275 days gestation, small heifer calf. First calver's dam just had a simmentalx heifer two days ago.

Have this bluex heifer incalf to Tweeddale Lennox and due on the 28th.

Moved the other group of cows on grass yesterday. Happy cows and calves!

Bull calf with 64kg birth weight. 13 days old in the photo. Shaping bit by bit. Will be interesting to see him in a couple months