A New Adventure

Monday morning, around 6:15am, the phone rang… the dairy farm we had contacted about Jersey bull calves had 2 waiting for us.  

I had built a large wooden box for the back of our mini-van so that we can transport a couple animals without hitching up the trailer… actually Aunt Celie’s trailer.  Anyway, we loaded the box in the mini-van and after dropping Noah off at school, Hannah and I went to Gap, PA to pick them up.   I think the family we purchased the calves from might still be talking about us putting calves in the back of a mini-van

One of the calves was 1 day old (born on 2/13) and the other was 10 days old (born on 2/4).  This week was a great time to get them because Dave is taking classes in Philly so I’m not working this week.  The older calf needs to be bottle fed twice a day and the younger calf will get 3 bottles a day till he’s a week old.  I wanted to call them Thing 1 and Thing 2, but Noah decided they should be named Burger and Sandwich. 

Burger

Sandwich

We castrated them by banding them Tuesday night before giving them their bottles.  It’s definitely more involved than banding tails to dock them.  We don’t castrate ram lambs so I didn’t realize how tricky it is to get both testicles on the right side of the band!  The calves didn’t even flinch when I got the band on and they’re doing fine today. 

Stay tuned for more calf stories!

4 thoughts on “A New Adventure

  1. Oh they are just precious! Given the names, I assume they’re eventually to become meals? My boyfriend is going to have a hand in raising his own meat chickens this year. I’m sure he’d eventually love to have cattle – we’ll have to follow your adventures with Burger and Sandwich, it certainly looks exciting!

    • Thanks, Courtney! We are raising them for meat, but they are very cute right now. How many baby animals aren’t cute, though? We’re on “lamb watch” now, with 2 ewes due within the week or so and 2 others due next week! Stay tuned!

  2. Oh my!Kim,they’re adorable! I have a few questions for you but it looks like you’re REALLY busy these days…and lambs due too!
    Let me know when we might get together. Check out my latest blog entry when you get a chance. I love the way your blog looks~you deserve many awards 🙂

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