Sage was restless and distracted most of today. Everytime we went to check her she ‘gave us the eye’ as if to say: ‘not yet, stop hassling me…’ and then just before 7pm tonight we saw the beginnings of the bag and the start of what we hoped was a foot!! 40 minutes later and after some fairly major bellowing and pushing, out popped this beauty: a very, very large heifer calf who seems just as big as Parsleys fantastically ‘old’ 2-week old bull calf. It was a privilege to watch. This was our first ever calving watched from start to finish (we missed Parsley's) and from our experiences of watching goats and sheep over the years, was a text-book birth: tummy down, feet and head out first! . Sage was fantastically attentive spinning round immediately the calf was out to start licking it. Tonight was bitterly cold, we have even had snow today, and so fast and furious licking was called for in order to keep the calf warm. We watched for half an hour or so and saw the first few attempts at walking and then on returning less than an hour later found mum and baby out on the woodchip with two of the four teats obviously having been suckled. Thick colostrum was dripping out of one and the calf had a lovely milky mouth.
The wonders of new life never, ever cease to inspire and humble!
It is going to be so exciting to have two calves bounding around together although we are NOT looking forward to the re-introductions, knowing how Sage and Parsley have scrapped in the past!!! But before then, we will let Sage and her calf have a few days together and enjoy watching their relationship develop.