Hooray, hooray, hooray. Look what we found first thing this morning: Thyme’s calf. Bless her little cottons; whilst we snoozed in the early hours, she was giving birth. By the time we found them both, the calf (a fabulous heifer) was up, about, had obviously drunk and was totally dry. Thyme herself was merrily eating the afterbirth (and there is an awful lot to eat) so that gave us the chance to check the calf over and make sure all was well. We were in the field by 7.30am and we reckon the birth must have happened a good couple of hours previously. Thyme had ignored her lovely strawed-out shelter and given birth outside. This was perfect: ZERO mucking out for us and the sun on the calf’s back must have really helped to dry her out. It was just fabulous to walk up to them both in the early morning sun: not a bad way to start the day.
The other calves came over to say hi and for a while the calf amused us by running round and round her mum, before then collapsing in a milky-full, sun-tired heap in a patch of long grass. Cows tend to leave their calves in patches in long grass in the same way as animals such as hares and various ground nesting birds: all part of keeping them hidden and safe from predators.
So calving for us is now over: just one or two alpacas to ‘unpack’ and then our 4-legged breeding year is complete!