Wednesday my lovely friends Christie and Jessica came over for the first time. I was giving them the grand tour of all the creatures here. We started out with Chickens and Chicks, then we moved through the Rabbits and Chinchillas. They both enjoyed getting to feel and hold the Chinchillas for the first time (their fur is really a magical thing to experience). Then I took them back outside, and was going to show them the cow herd, mostly because of our miniature black bull. I was pointing everyone out and paused, wait, there was an extra being out there. One of our girls had a calf! He was very literally brand new! Still wet, had not yet stood up. Very exciting.
This was a surprise for us, because we weren’t sure that our little bull had figured out his job….. We had never seen him accomplish the task before (mom says he must be a midnight lover). We had no clue that the girls were bred, just thought they were FAT. Now that she has had a calf, we can tell the other little girl is pregnant also, she will probably have hers in the next few days.
The two girls are not miniature cows, but mom bought the smallest girls she could find. They have stayed pretty small as they grew up. So their babies should be nice and small, because their dad is smaller than both of the girls.
It was a fun event for all of us. He is a really cute little calf. We decided his name should be panda, because his little face looks a bit like a panda with his black eye patches. I’m glad Christie and Jessica got to experience a bit of our “farm life”.
He has been figuring out how to use his legs and everything else. The photo above is Panda at one day old. We had to put him and his mom in a separate pen than the other cows, because they were being a little too curious of the new family member. They seem quite happy in their space, and he enjoys running around with his little tail up in the air. It will be fun when the other girl has her calf, and they are put in the same pen, the babies will be able to play together.
A birth can be even more exciting when you have no idea it is going to happen! It’s rather funny we didn’t catch onto any of the ’signs’, its just something we really didn’t expect.
So Welcome to the Farm Panda.
