Here's the back story. Our neighbor right across the street let us put our cows and horses in his empty pasture. On August 16th I caught the other neighbors Longhorn bull in the pasture putting the moves on my Jersey cow Mabeline. She had been AI'd in July but clearly did not take. Maybeline was the only one he was interested in. I didn't even see that Covergirl, her last years heifer calf was in heat, she was only 9 months old then.
But guess what? EXACTLY 9 months later on May 16th, Covergirl delivers Maxfactor, a real bruiser of a bull calf. She had him at the back of our pasture, luckily dad just happened to be irrigating then and was walking back to change water when he spotted them. She was exhausted and was laying there with just the calves head and some front feet poking out. He had to pull and work the shoulders out, then she did the rest. They were so tired it took them both awhile to get up.
We loaded the calf into the back of the pickup and hauled him to the barn as momma followed. She wasn't wanting to let him suck at first but she would let dad milk her no problem. We filled a pop bottle up and slapped a nipple on it, and he went to sucking. It took her a little while to figure the whole mess out, but now she's an excellent momma!
Why was this calf so big though? If he is half longhorn he should have been small right? Covergirl is HolsteinXjersey, so I was thinking around a 50-60lb calf not 80!
The bull was probably a long yearling, but he was real stocky and a neat silver and red roan color. Here are some pics of Maxfactor, what do you think? Longhorn? Or maybe someone else snuck in when I wasn't aware. He's rather beefy looking already. Sorry about the pics being so big.
Here he is almost two months old.
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