Another surprise

This year's calving season has been so full of surprise and intrigue.  This week's latest was an unexpected set of twins!  Unfortunately, the little (and I use that word literally) female was stillborn, but the bull calf appears to be doing well as of this writing. 

 



We'd been watching Swallow most of the morning because she was restless and wandering the pasture alone.  I had to run (okay, drive) to town for an appointment, so Chris was in the pasture checking on her when I pulled up to the house.  He met me inside with a serious face and the news that Swallow had calved and that it was dead.  He asked me to come with him to remove the calf because momma was frantically trying to revive it.  Imagine our surprise when we got back to the birthing spot to find a just born second calf!

Poor Swallow.  She was still attempting to revive the first calf,  then she'd rush over to the new one and give him a quick lick.  Since he needed all of momma's attention, we knew that we needed to get the dead calf away, but momma wasn't having any of that either!  Chris finally edged the ATV over the dead twin while Swallow was attending the live one for a moment.  He was able to pull the dead calf underneath and lay her in the back of the ATV.  We backed away and watched as Swallow's confusion left her and she became a momma to one.

The dead twin was a heifer who apparently didn't thrive well in the womb.  She was sunken looking, weighed next to nothing and didn't take a breath after she was born.  Since she was the female twin of a bull, she'd have also been a freemartin (sterile) had she lived.  The horned male will probably be "Swallow's steer" as that will be his destiny and we don't usually give the steers "real" names. 

We're sure hoping the rest of the season is uneventful.  Ten live calves on the ground and five more to go for spring.....we're a few weeks away (I think) from the next one.