Twins!

What a crazy month it has been!  I don't know whether I'm coming or going (hopefully I'm not the only person that feels this way sometimes).  It has been calving season and those little critters are so cute!  And we had our first set of twins!  Yeah!  Well, I said yeah, J so oh no.  Why?  I knew we would have a bottle/bucket calf and was excited--a first time experience for me.  J is more of the "I'm not in 4-H anymore, been there, done that" kind of attitude.  Normally a cow will not accept both of the calves, so without bottle feeding the cast-off will perish.  So we get to take care of Arnold (more on the naming process later).





So what does it take to bottle feed a calf? Patience and lots of dried milk replacer :-)


Tanner's cup?  Not quite--the milk replacer comes with its own measuring cup--how cool is that?!?!?

 

And of course the directions. 

A little mixing action with some warm water (this lil guy gets 4 cups at each serving right now)

 



And here's me feeding Arnold.  It took him a while to realize that the goods came from the bottle--but now he comes right up  :-)  He can guzzle the 4 cups in about 2 minutes.  J says when he gets a few weeks older the amount will go up to 8 cups.  Arnold gets fed in the morning and in the evening.  Calves (like all babies) need the nutrients in milk until they can rely totally on solid food.

So how did J come up with Arnold as a name?  Does anybody remember this movie?

 

 



 

Well as it turns out, Arnold is the much bigger calf, and well Danny is the runt.  LOL.

Still a little cutie, but weighs about 20 lbs less than Arnold.  But the momma wanted the lil guy.