Sunday, March 20, 2011

Accessorize your calf



First let me say that calves are not exactly tame.
They're not exactly wild either, but still, run!
Run for your lives! Run like the wind!
Hide behind your mama. She will save you!!!

My cowboy has learned that if he wants to band and tag his calves, he needs to do it EARLY.
They get really hard to catch.
And that can be tricky because sometimes the mama cow's instinct,
when she's just newly delivered a calf and powerful hormones are flooding her system,
is to try and kill anyone who touches her baby.
And if it wasn't My Cowboy who she was trying to kill, I'd sort of respect that.
Of course this is the same man who has been feeding her for years. She is clearly confused.
Which doesn't make her murderous rampage any easier on anyone.
So here's a calf that has gotten a bit too old.
He's one day old.
He's a day old and he is running, along with all his buddies, away from the fiery jaws of death.
Or, another name for them...the ear tagger.
This is a close up of the SCARY EAR TAGGER.
The red tag will soon be the latest fashioin statement for all day old or older calves.
I'd feel a sorry for the calves if I didn't have my ears pierced.

These things happen. Stop running and deal with it.

And here we are. The finished product.
Peer pressure should have made the calf stand still to begin with.
And if one more cow tries to kill him,
I'm going to urge My Cowboy to give up his cowboy ways
and get a job piercing ears at Claire's in the mall.
He has the skills.
Also look at the little red calf on the left above.
He is so fun.
We get a fun color once in a while because we buy some replacement cows every year
and we can't control who they're been bred to.
So the red ones are fun.
Most of them are still Angus.
Though you think Black when you think Angus....
....well, I do, you may go years without even having the world Angus flash through your mind...
....but there are red Angus, too and some other red breeds.
I don't know which breed this little guy is.
I only know the red ear tag is the perfect accessory with the red fur.

5 comments:

Faith said...

Your cowboy is brave doing the tagging all by himself. Wow! My uncles tend to wait until the calves are a month old and then chase them down on horses, and rope the poor little things, have 2 full grown men sit on it, while someone else tags it. Your cowboys is doing great, handling this all by himself!
I love the surprises too! My grandmother's ranch is right next to a ranch that runs those big white Charolais, and my uncles run the black Angus, so as you can imagine when the sneaky cows get out, sometimes come spring they have a little white or golden colored calf. Those are everybody's favorite!

Wow, this is getting long!
But, I have to tell you, my favorite posts of yours are the ones about your ranch, with all the cool pictures:)

Faye

Vince said...

Mary:

When I saw this blogger headline:

“Accessorize Your Calf”

I expected to see a selection of leather bands with feathers and beads dangling down designed to be tired between the knee and the ankle. I haven’t seen them since the ‘60’s. Did you have hippies in Nebraska back then?

Vince

Mary Connealy said...

You thought I was gonna talk about ankle bracelets, Vince?

I could do that tomrrow. :)

Mary Connealy said...

Faye, the little charlois are pure white, like little lambs when they're born. I love it when we get one of those.

Vince said...

Hi Mary:

I afraid my comment didn’t make any sense.

Some of the hippie girls at UC in the 60’s would wear a leather band around their calf to which dangled down feathers and/or beads. Of course, this was at the same time they were painting flowers on their faces. I don’t think that accessorizing one’s calf ever caught on. But your post did remind me of these wonderful, eclectic days.


Vince