My visit to the maternity ward... of the bovine varity

We are in the middle of Calving right now, we calve from Jan 15- middle/end of march, which is 3 breeding cycles, so pretty much if a cow can't get pregnant in 3 cycles we ship it. This year we have  30 bred heifers (cows who have never had calves).  We plan is to have the hardest births first, heifers are the hardest because they don't have a clue what to do, they also tend to be smaller. Twins also will come first so usually by the middle of February the tough stuff is over.  Because the weather has been so beautiful this winter I have gone out with Ben on many of his  night checks (he usually checks every 4-6 hours depending on the weather)

First let me describe our "uniforms" Ben wears grey coveralls and neutral toques/mitt etc  I wear a bright turquoise toques with a pompom, his royal blue blue jays jacket from the 90s', bright yellow snow pants and if it warm enough my lime green rubber boots. (my uniform will change a bit next year once I am not carrying a child, but I will keep the boots!) Ben is always so embarrassed, I am not sure why, it is not like the cows are going to nominate me for what not to wear or anything...

Most nights we walk down check the cows and head back to the house but one Sunday night I got to be part of the action.  We headed down to the calving barn and saw that one cow had her water sack out but it had not broken,  we pulled out 2 buckets and sat on them in the "barn" (3-sided shelter) we waited.... and waited

Night time with the cows is eerily calm, most of the cows are lying down in the straw. They calmly chew their cud, some sleep, a calf slurps milk from it's moms tits,  few calves run around (I'm sure their moms are thinking "I wish they would just calm down and go to sleep so I can too") The cows were very interested in us, they walk right up to us to check us out, one even laid her head on Ben's leg and just left it there... for awhile,  Ben and I would slowly move to check on our "labouring" mother, she would get up and walk around then lie down panting and mooing, then get up and walk again.  we waited some more...

A cow mistook Ben for a pole and scratched her head on him (see that why I wear the colours.. no cows are going to mistake me for a wooden pole) of course I got a case of the giggles.  Anyway 2 hours into our ordeal I was starting to get cold, and Ben was getting worried, normally cows don't actively labour this long, so he decided to intervene:
Step 1 approach labouring mother and tie rope around her, easy
Step 2 lead her to pole and secure rope so she can't move... not so easy a little scary actually as you can imagine she freaks out a bit,  I am trying to help as well as reminding myself that I am 7 months pregnant and I need to keep myself safe, finally she was secure
Step 3 Attach "pulls" to presenting feet (calves come out front feet first then head/shoulders etc)
Step 4 wait for contraction and pull.... calf is not going anywhere Ben says "here hold this", he hands me the pulls, by this point we are covered in "water" and blood and poop and he gets a device which helps us get more leverage so there I am in my yellow pants helping to pull a calf at 7 months pregnant... yep I'm a farm girl..
Step 5 pull calf out... when the calf came out the mom falls down with exhaustion  (they give birth standing up) Ben took the calf and brought it up to her face so she would lick it off  and that was that, pretty neat and a little messy...
We called it a night and headed back up the hill (yes I usually stop and rest half way up) It is a fun way to spend an evening with my husband..

Here are some pictures of yet another gorgeous morning when I take the boys to see the new babies