The Egg Routine and getting calluses, and some R-rated material at the end (for violence, not sexual content)

Saturday is a half day here at the farm (for me, not for Sally), and like always, I did the egg routine. I figure I’d photo-document that for y’all, as I do this every morning.

First, I let the chickens out of the coop:

For some reason, it always makes me feel like the chickens just landed on the beaches at Normandy.

Then I give them their grain which they crowd around, clucking.

There are many more chickens than this--at least 23, but this morning only a few immediately came over.

Then I clean out their water bucket and give them new water, and come back with a basket to collect the eggs in. Not really a photogenic process.

Then I collect the eggs.

oh, hello there!

Sometimes I open up the door to the nest boxes and there's still a chicken on top of the eggs, in which case I either shoo them away or, if they don't move, just reach under them and take the eggs. Some are more territorial than others, and this particular one didn't mind at all. Didn't really seem to notice, actually, which makes me question her maternal instincts. 

After collection.

Then I take the eggs over to the little egg-cleaning station that I set up. The empty egg cartons that I'll put the clean eggs, a mat to clean over so if I drop one it won't crack on the hard table, a little towel to hold the eggs with, and sanding sponges to sand the eggs with.

Underneath the table you can see Reina's stuffed animal graveyard.
I would not wish to be a stuffed animal on this farm.

Sometimes Reina comes to help out.

But I think she's just hoping I give her an egg

During this time is when Sally usually comes over and we talk about what works needs to be done that morning. Yesterday she said that the artificial inseminator guy was coming because Dorie was in heat--didn't I notice Dorie mounting the other cows? Nope! I hadn't. But just then I heard some movement from the barn pasture and Dorie was indeed trying to get on top of Sparkle, who was scrambling away. Ginger was watching the scene, but keeping her back end safely pointed away from Dorie.

The reason we sand the eggs instead of washing them is because when eggs are laid they have a natural protective coating around them (the bloom), and sanding them with the sanding sponge is believed to disrupt the bloom less than washing with water does (and so you could keep them at room temperature if desired.) Though apparently how a farmer chooses to wash their eggs is bit of a hot-button issue, so don't expect this to be the way that all farmers do it. I have heard previously that if you use the washing technique then you have to refrigerate the eggs afterward, because more of the bloom is washed off and thus can allow more bacteria to enter the egg. But if you do wash eggs, you should wash them with warm water, not hot so it doesn't cook the egg, and not cold because it  makes the pores of the shell open up and may allow more bacteria in. 

One thing I really enjoy about farm eggs is that various sizes and colors that they come in. There is one chicken here that lays very oblong eggs that are almost symmetrical along all three axes. Here it is next to a "normal" egg.

Two of Janet's (Sally's partner) hens lay blue eggs. One of those chickens is a full-sized chicken, but one of them is only a poult and so is not fully mature and lays miniature blue eggs which I think is great. She gave me one on my first day and I ate it for Sunday lunch. Delicious.

Sally said that one of her hens will occasionally lay an egg that doesn't have a shell, just the thin membrane around it. I haven't come across this yet but I don't really care to either.

After cleaning enough eggs to fill the cartons and putting them in (pointier end down--some sort of thing about an air bubble on the bottom that shouldn't be squished) I bring them to the farm stand where anyone can swing by and buy them!

two dozen eggs! 

the inside of the fridge in the farm stand.

And that concludes the egg routine!

Today after eggs Sally and I loaded up another 125 bales of hay on a hay wagon. It's exhausting work. I started on the ground retrieving the bales from the barn, and Sally was positioning them in line on the wagon. After two layers of hay we switched and I was on the wagon. It's hard moving around up there, you have to step in the middle of the bales otherwise the hay will give out, and they kind of wobble regardless of where you stand. After that was done we moved the hay that didn't fit on the wagon into the barn basement. Lots of hay-moving! I was wearing gloves and my hands still felt tight and red for most of the day.

After an early lunch (another reuben from the Creamery--I'm addicted!) I hammered a bunch of barn board on top of the drywall, which is also tiring work and by 2.30 I was too fatigued and did some bottle washing instead.

washing bottles..er...jars.

It was a tiring day, but sometimes it's nice to get a kick in the ass after a few lazy days.

Oh also! Yesterday I noticed some feathers strewn about in the front pasture. Two chickens had been killed there a few nights ago--probably the two chickens that don't actually roost in the coop, but rather hang out with the coop chickens until dusk and then roost elsewhere. Sally reckons that they were hanging around a little too late, waiting for their buddies when a fox or something got them. One of their heads is still out there, and I offered the suggestion that we should remove it before the wedding as they'll be using the front pasture for hot air balloon rides. She agreed. Neither of us have touched it yet.

Sally said that last year they had a mink that would go after the ducks, and it would attack them, bite their heads off, then try to drag them through fence but couldn't because their bodies were too big, and so then leave them there. So they'd wake up in the morning and ducks would be beheaded and jammed into the fence. Isn't farm life great?! 

With that, have a good night! Sweet dreams!

Mudding, Taping, and a visit from the Rents visit

Saturday is a half day here at the farm (for me, not for Sally), and I spent the morning throwing some more drywall up in the barn, and then taping and mudding the seams. The reason for this is that on Saturday there is going to be a wedding in the barn! But that means that the building has to meet fire safety regulation, so the wall with the emergency exit on it has to have some fireproofing put in. Sally is also building a handicap ramp for the barn. Right now the barn is still full of hay, there's ugly drywall up (to be covered with prettier barn board), and the outline of a ramp that leads up to a door that currently lets out onto a seven foot drop to the ground. It is a really good thing that the couple lives in Brooklyn and won't be stopping by for an impromptu visit to see the space in the days leading up the wedding, as they'd probably go into conniptions over the state of affairs. Obviously we have a lot of work left this week, so I'll be doing more carpentry-type jobs than I would otherwise this time of year. But it's been fun and I've been learning a lot.

ramp construction, looking into the front pasture

Add caption

That's the drywall going up on the left there. I'd take more pictures of the barn but my flash on my camera doesn't work anymore (maybe it fell at some point?) so it's a bit limiting. 


Just now (late afternoon Monday) the hay wagon finally showed up so we started to load up all of the hay, which is hard work. We'll load 125 bales today and another 125 bales tomorrow morning. I'm using this as my workout for the day and maybe an excuse to grab another ice cream sandwich....


But I'm geting ahead of myself! On Saturday after mudding and drywalling I went to the Ashfield farmers market to get some apples for my aunt (hi Kritty! I got you Cortlands!) and then had the afternoon off. I took a walk to the waterfall which is about a ten minute walk across the boardwalk. It was a bit too dark for my camera so I didn't get any good ones of the actual waterfall (although hopefully dad did on Sunday.)

The finished boardwalk leading to the forest 

Very green and tranquil in there

Whenever there's a still pond you gotta get a reflection picture...

...or two

And on Sunday my parents visited! It was really fun, they got here a little before noon which was perfect for a tour of the farm before the calves came out for their midday exercise. My dad took a bunch of pictures with his really nice camera, and those pictures will undoubtedly be better than the one taken with my 4 year old Canon point and shoot, so I'll do a bigger post later with his pictures. For now, here are some that I got:

Still the cutest one, I think.

Mercy and Dorie, doing what cows do.

Butts.

All four! Mercy and Dorie were standing right next to each other when Sparkle just moosed right in there in between them.

Dad taking Ace for a walk!

Kip sucking on mom's pants!

We also got delicious hot sandwiches at the Creamery, drove to Notchview (I forgot to bring my camera but again, hopefully dad got some good shots), drove to Manda farm to see the Gloucestshire Old Spots and their floppy ears (again, waiting for dad's shots), and then split an ice cream sandwich (apparently my proclivity for these treats comes from m + d.) It was great! I think they enjoyed it too.

Gotta load some more hay now.  Not really feeling up to it but oh well. Just gotta keep my eyes on the prize (ice cream sandwich), eyes on the prize...

fog, rain, an allergy attack, and an exciting surprise!

So, as I was finishing up yesterday's post and having to constantly explain that I had no photos of that day because my camera inexplicably vanished into thin air, Sally came in with...my camera! See someone had found it on the side of the highway (what? How did it get there from the picnic table where I non-stupidly left it?) and brought it into the Police Department. They looked through the photos and noticed that a lot of them were from Sally's farm (this farm used to be a town building or something and is pretty historic, so people know what it looks like) and so let her know. I love small towns! But then I wondered maybe something really embarrassing was in the photos? Like some horrible self-portrait I was thinking of making my profile picture? As I was looking through them, the first fifteen or so are of the same cat, which is...kind of embarrassing. But it's a small price to pay to have it back.

one of the many, many photos of this cat that was saved

Also, I just want to point out the miraculousness of the fact that my camera sat on top of my car for over a mile as I drove down Fairgrounds Road all the way to Route 9--now that's safe driving (hi mom and dad! Are you reading this?) I'm guessing it fell off right after I pulled onto Route 9 and accelerated to 65 mph in about 6.1 second, tires screeching, smoke flying from the back, and laying down two long streaks of rubber pointed in the direction of a hot sandwich and a totally oblivious driver (joking! But dad you did always tell us the squealing tires are happy tires.)

Wednesday morning's fog

With that, let's return to yesterday. It was raining on and off all day. In the morning we had to throw some drywall up in the barn in order to have it meet inspection (add drywalling to my new list of macho talents that I've gained in the past few months (in addition to truck-driving and (swamp) carpentry)) but I had a mega allergy attack and had to leave the barn (seriously, I need one of these.) After doing non-barn stuff that needed to be done, like putting new shavings and hay in the chicken coop and cleaning out five wheel barrows full of cow shit from the barn, I was just moping about my stupid allergies. But then! I remembered the sign at the farm stand said "Ice Cream Sandwiches" and I decided to investigate.

intriguing...

Turns out, that Betsy--Sharon's partner from last week who made the life-alteringly good apple cake, also makes ice cream sandwiches! Is there anything this woman can't do? Sharon is a lucky, lucky woman.

Somewhat pathetically, the ice cream sandwich made me feel way better (am I five?) and I was ready for the task of digging a four foot hole in the afternoon. Four feet! Not easy. The holes are for the supports for the handicap ramp that Sally is building for the barn.

This job kind of sucked to be honest. But at least I was being useful. Also another kid that's doing a long-term wwoof (a year) at a nearby farm came to help out and he was interesting to talk to. His name is  Sy (real name) and his family owns land in Cummington that they are going to break ground on soon.

After we were done digging holes, Sy drove K and me to Notchciew which is part of the Trustees of Reservation to pick apples at the abandoned orchard there (I think technically you are supposed to pay a small fee to the Trustees of the Reservation out there but no one bothered us.)  It was on a really lovely piece of land, the apple trees were planted in an expansive meadow on hill right beyond the caretaker’s house that looked out on the surrounding area. The trees here are just starting to turn gold, with a few maples here and there already a vibrant orange and red. I will definitely be going back, likely this weekend, with my camera so you can all see it. And the apples! So delicious! One tree in particular had perhaps the most delicious apples I’d ever tasted. Sy asked if I wanted to join him at 3am Saturday morning and get a whole bunch (bushel?) for the pigs at the farm he is staying at but I'm thinking I'll pass. A 3am apple run would be fun, but so would sleeping through the night. 

After the orchard we drove to Manda Farm where Sy has been staying since the start of summer. First, we gave some apples to the pigs—they have Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs which are so adorable. They have big ears that hang in front of their eyes. I guess they don’t use their eyes much, just their noses. Also, really blond eyelashes! And the most perfectly pudgy bodies, they look just like pigs should. Oh also there’s Charles, who is the enormous 500 lb boar and looks kind of scary but really is just a big teddy bear. At the farm there are also two pretty stupid but sweet dogs—one of which is missing a leg from the time he was hit by a car. As we were driving away from the farm, he ran in front of our car, and the missing leg made total sense. They also have some Narragansett turkeys which are actually quite beautiful—something I never thought I’d say about turkeys before. They sell them for Thanksgiving as a heritage breed. Also, they have baby turkeys which make thoroughly adorable squeaking noises, all-black Dexter cows which are short and mean-looking and also just mean, sheep that had dark brown spots, two ducks, and goats! This was the first time I had any real affection for goats; in general they freak me out with their square horizontal pupils and penchant for eating clothing. But these were Nubians with really soft floppy ears and little lips that would close around my finger, and itchy heads that they would rub against my leg. I liked these goats!

We also harvested some oyster mushrooms while we were there, and looked for shitakes that they cultivate but none were showing. Then Sy drove us back to our farm for another quiet evening, briefly interrupted by catching four idiot chickens that still didn't go back to the new location of the coop. Hopefully by tonight they will have figured it out.

Today was mainly spent in the barn, where I discovered that Claritin actually works for me! I felt like a living commercial for Claritin all day. Anyway, we put up a whole bunch of drywall. I drilled some stuff. It was pretty lowkey. Oh also, K took off this morning kind of unexpectedly, so he's no longer around.

About to go pick up some pizza for dinner! It's pouring here, but I think it's supposed to be the last day of it. I didn't take any pictures because everything's dreary, so sorry for the low-picture post.

swamp carpentry, hand-milking, and catching chickens

It's been a busy two days! I'm torn between wanting to write a bunch every night because I feel like I do so much and learn so much every day, and also not feeling like spending every night in front of the computer swearing profusely at blogspot (mainly the latter.)

Also, the pictures featured in this post will be taken from earlier here at the farm, because I uh...seem to have misplaced my camera in the space-time continuum. It's the darndest thing: last I remember, it was resting on top of my car, happy as clam. Then, after I drive back from the Creamery for lunch (sometimes a girl just really needs a hot sandwich), I can't find it! I mean, I obviously wouldn't be stupid enough to drive off with it on top of my car, but just in case I was I walked along the road for half a mile checking all around. No dice. Which makes me think it just fell into a small time warp and will show up sometime tomorrow, because it certainly hasn't been here the past few days.

In The Week Magazine that I get, there are always these little heart-warming stories at the bottom of the news pages because otherwise it'd be too depressing to read, and without fail every few months there will be a story about some guy that'll go like this "John Mitchell had $6,000 in a bag that he put on top of his car while he was strapping his kid in the child-seat which he then forgot about it. He thought he'd lost the money forever when some 17-year-old who was too stupid to take the money turned it into the police, thus reconfirming everyone's faith in humanity. Hooray!" and I always think "John Mitchell is an idiot. Who drives away with something on top of their car?" Well, now I'm one of those idiots.To all the John Mitchells out there: I'm sorry I judged you.

SO, to continue on like you all just didn't lose a bit of respect for me from the above confession (I could've lied! But I didn't!) yesterday morning instead of doing the normal morning chicken routine (let the chickens out, give them grain and water, take their eggs and clean them) we moved the chicken coop to a different part of the farm for the winter, with all the chickens still inside. To refresh, the chicken coop looks like this:

the thing on the left, not the thing on the right

Man, did they squawk. We only lost one egg in the process though! Quick fact: did you know that chickens eat eggs if they break? Gross, right? Sally says they are the poor man's pig.

The rest of the morning was spent harvesting beans--basically pulling the plants out of the ground to dry on screens over the next few weeks.

Then there was the aforementioned sandwich craving/camera losing, however you want to look at it.

Then in the afternoon, there was swamp carpentry! I mentioned this earlier but never expanded on it. There is a swampy stream on the far end of the garden and we are setting up a little boardwalk across it to have access to the woods back there.

the boardwalk

We are basically just screwing in boards on the sides of the separate components of the boardwalk so it kind of stands on stilts a few inches above the water.

a closer view

It's not my favorite work, we have to stand in the water which is quite cold and the bottom is slimy, and I was pretty bummed about my camera's disappearance, so I had a bit of a down afternoon.

It wasn't so deep in this picture, but yesterday we were up to our waist and it was pretty unpleasant. Luckily it's almost finished now. 

But then! Sally said I could do hand-milking! Dorie's milk isn't quite up to snuff and she's not producing much of it, so it was a perfect time to practice! But first, I had to call in the cows. I kind of always assumed that cows just know when it's time to come in ("until the cows come home"is totally misleading) but no, you have to walk out into the pasture and shake grain at them. So I did that, and they looked up from munching their grass, and looked at me and recognized me as the one that never knows what she's doing, and then promptly went back to munching grass. I shook harder and they ignored me. I tried to sweet talk them and they laughed. OK no not really but it also didn't work. What did work were the chickens! Little did I know that while I was facing the cows and shaking grain, four chickens were running full speed at me from the opposite direction. I don't know if you've ever seen chickens run, but it's pretty funny. But for some reason the cows believe chickens more than me, and then they all started to come in. (No pictures of this because my camera was on hiatus, sadly.)

So, for Dorie I did the typical teat washing and dipping in iodine (didn't get it all over myself--a marked improvement from last time) but then I just sat down on a little stool with a metal bucket started to hand-milk! I was pretty terrible at it. It's hard! As I mentioned before, you make a ring with your pointer finger and thumb and squeeze the top of the teat, then use the other three fingers to squeeze the milk out.  But my hands are a little big and so I have to scrunch my fingers on top of each other, and then the hole that the milk comes out of doesn't necessarily come out straight from the bottom, on one of them it kind of comes out the side so then it hits my fingers and just dribbles into the pail that way. So I had that to worry about, and then the angling, and right as I was building up a rhythm and getting a little bit accumulated in the bucket, Dorie kicked it over and I felt like a really old-timey cliche. So then I tried again, and I never really got good at it which I was a little disappointed about. Sometimes I'd be concentrating hard on my left hand so I didn't realize I hadn't released my right hand to let more milk into the teat. Poor Dorie, but she was a good sport. In the end I probably ended up with a paltry pint. I now have way more respect for bucket-milking (with the machines.) But Sally said that cows that are used to hand-milking would probably be better at letting their milk go and once you got experience hand-milking it wouldn't go so slowly. Stilly, I'm glad I tried it as it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. And I get to cross it off my Bucket List! Ha!

OK that was a lot of text that you may or may not have read in its entirety, so you deserve a picture of something cute:

Tigger! One of the cats.

I'll have a whole post sometime soon (probably on a slow day where nothing else exciting happened) that has tons of gratuitous pictures of the cats.

OK so the story of yesterday is STILL not finished because what happened after milking and after dinner, is that Sally came in and said there was a mini farm emergency. See, she was going to close up the chickens in their coop for the night, but none of them were there (I guess at dark they automatically go into the coop) so Sally checked the field where their coop used to be and, lo and behold, all the chickens were sleeping on top of each other in a big pile right where the coop used to stand.

So, we had to catch them and put them in the right place. It was a funny site, Sally, K, me and Sally's dad all tromping out to the pile of chickens to catch them. The first few were easy to catch because they were either asleep or sleepy, but they figured out what was going on pretty fast. See, to catch a chicken you quickly snatch their legs and pull them into the air. They squawk and might flap a bit, but then I don't know if they get woozy from being upside down or just petrified, but they don't make much noise after that. I caught four, two in each hand, then hauled them off the coop across the farm. When I came back from the first round it was just Sally and me (K the vegetarian "doesn't like holding them like this!" and Sally's dad was overseeing the chickens getting into the coop) stalking the remaining four. I handily got two before I heard a simultaneous thud and loud squawk, only to look over and see Sally lying on top of a chicken. She had tackled and captured it with great success. The last one we couldn't get, so we let it fend for itself for the night.

Running out in a pasture and grabbing chickens has been one of the more entertaining nights I've had here--though it kind of lost its farmy charm when I had to do it again tonight with four chickens that must have amnesia and not remembered the previous night's trauma.

I was going to try and write up today too, but I think this entry is long enough. Thanks for reading, if you read it all!

Some more pictures of cows, and an update on Ace!

It was a rainy, low-key day at the farm today. In the morning I had to Move Heavy Crap in the spidery barn basement (darn, didn't escape it after all) until I had an epic allergy attack (the hay? the mold?) and was relegated to bottle washing duty. All the bottles for the CSA are washed by hand here. I don't know how many bottles it is, but it's about six hours of work a week. It's not so bad, though. I like washing things and the little room where we wash gets nice and toasty warm.

Here's a crappy picture of the room where all the bottles and milking equipment are cleaned, and where the milk is bottled (jarred? It comes in jars.)

Then this afternoon my job was to make mozzarella. I also made bread. It was great! Not the bread or the mozzarella--just the fact that that was my assigned afternoon task. The mozzarella is OK, it has a bit of a dense rubbery texture and I wish I knew how professionals do it to make the little balls all puffy and light. Perhaps I'll youtube it later.

In any case, to start more at the beginning of things, I got back to the farm Sunday night after having a nice weekend at home. Sounds like it was a stressful weekend though! They got a new, 8 month pregnant cow on Saturday named Ginger. She is half Jersey and half Guernsey and fully adorable. She is the cutest, in my opinion. Just look at her!

But notice her horns? The one on the right (her left) was "pulled" correctly, but the one of the left kind of sticks up all wonky-like. This is bad, as it means they are actually a danger (or, one of them is) and she actually gored Sparkle over the weekend. Just gave her a six-inch long cut on her hip. So the horns are a problem, but it would be too stressful at this point to remove them (because she's full grown) and especially too stressful because she's pregnant, so Sally glued tennis balls to them!

 

Getting her tennis balls

Not seeming to like this very much

But with totally adorable results. It's like she's being a bumble bee for Halloween!

Now she is very easily recognizable.

In addition to Ginger goring Sparkle, Sparkle kicking Sally in the shin during milking, there were a few other stressful cow-related events over the weekend. Dorie, one of the Brown Swiss, has a swollen hip again so she has trouble walking, and also her somatic cell count is up, which means she could be on the verge of getting an infection, which would be bad because her milk would be unusable during this time. Dorie is kind of the chronically injured one, and if she keeps at this rate it might not make economic sense to keep her as a dairy cow, but if she isn't a dairy cow, well....she would probably be sold to be a meat cow. Obviously nobody wants this to happen (Dorie least of all) so Sally is going to try really hard to get her healthy again.

To add to the drama, Mercy (the 1,400 lb lady) is in heat and is mounting the other cows, and she mounted Ginger, which made Sparkle jealous (I guess Sparkle is usually Mercy's special girl--apparently cows will mount cows when there are no bulls around, kind of like humans too?) so then Sparkle was being pissy and it's all really very immature.

And so it was a crazy weekend! Sally looked exhausted when I saw her Monday. But things have smoothed out to some extent. So far Ginger isn't really fitting in with the other cows. She is quite shy, shier than the other cows, she won't let me walk up to her. And she won't go in the barn, I don't know if it's because she doesn't want to or she feels intimidated by the other cows. They can be an intimidating bunch in there, though.

Cows like to stay inside when it rains, too!

Except Ginger had to stay outside. Her tennis balls got dirty overnight. Doesn't she look ridiculous?

Yesterday K and I spent most of the afternoon picking apples to be pressed for cider. They are ugly little things, as organic apples often are, and also quite sour as they are cider apples and not really for eating. Apparently the cider does come out with the right amount of sweetness, though. Anyway, a lot of what I saw yesterday when I was on the ladder was this:

 

and when I was holding the ladder for K, I saw this:

 

 

Later in the day, I also saw this:

It's Ace!

 He's doing a lot better since last I saw him, his walking isn't nearly so wobbly. But he is still quite shy and just kind of stands around awkwardly on his tall gangly legs and watches Kip canter (is it called this for cows too?) around with ease. In my mind it's like Vincent and Anton in Gattaca--the brawny, confident one and the sickly, shy one.

 But he is so freaking cute I can't handle it, I just want to snuggle with him. And he would even get excited and try a little canter here and there, just buck up his backside for a single stride and then catch his balance again. And today when they were out Ace even cantered for an extended period of time! He's getting his strength and spirit back after a crappy first three days on this earth! It is so lovely to see.

the boys going in after their afternoon exercise

future oxen!

 Kip and Ace are staying in the same stall with a wall two hay bales high to separate them and I hear they are getting along famously. Apparently they will touch noses over the top of it (gah! How do they come up with this stuff?) I will try to get a picture of that.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this post, I spent a lot of the time on the computer today and don't really feel like spending more to make it flawless. I always think of Abraham Lincoln's quote "I'm sorry I wrote such a long letter. I did not have the time to write a short one."

I'll leave you with this one.

Cute Overload at the farm

Friday was an exciting day at the farm. Not because I escaped the job of Moving Heavy Crap from one corner of the spidery barn basement to another on account my allergies acting up in there, and not because I got to spend the morning harvesting herbs in the garden where I swam through a sea of mint with a hand sickle and made the air feel like toothpaste that cleaned my lungs, BUT RATHER because we got another baby cow!

Ace, the new Jersey bull calf

He is three days old and arrived lying down in the pickup truck behind the seats. His name is Ace.

can you spy the calf?

Ace could have been a very sad story. He came from another, much larger dairy farm that has no use for bulls because they can't produce milk. At that farm (and most other dairy farms) if the bull calves aren't bought within a few weeks (and they'd be bought mainly for veal), they are killed. Even at three days old it was clear that Ace wasn't very well taken care of at his old farm. He was really skinny and couldn't walk very well because he had no opportunity to. Sally said that the cage he was being kept in was only big enough for him to stand up in.

Lying down behind the seats. Very skinny as you can see!

I think their legs are so cute all folded up

Ace was also eerily subdued, especially when compared to Kip, (the calf that was born two days before I got to the farm) who is quite spirited and strong. Hopefully with a few days of lots of milk and TLC from Sally, Ace will gain some weight and be back on track to be a healthy Jersey cow.

Reina the dog came over to check out this new creature

 Ace had to be lifted out of the truck, and then he kind of wobbled around for a bit on his long thin legs. He sadly seemed very scared.

you can't see in this picture, but he has the longest most beautiful eyelashes. I'm jealous.

 

 We tried to get him to walk to the barn so he could be fed (they seem more likely to take the bottle when they are in a more enclosed space) but he wouldn't go so Sally had to pick him up and take him there.

 

 Now compare this to Kip, the calf that was raised a healthy as can be at our farm. He runs around a lot and he's really fast! We have to switch off handlers because we get tired before he does. The first is Sally's dad, the second two are K.

being pulled along

holding the calf with one hand, and his pants up with the other

Also, new calves suck on everything they can. Like fingers!

Finally, Reina the dog was finally allowed to check out the calf--something she's been wanting to do since it was born but wasn't allowed to. The calf didn't really pay the dog any mind, but Reina was sniffing the calf all over.

And that's it! I think this page will shut down if there are any more pictures of cute calves. Hope you enjoyed them!