Porter House

We are having the Weekend of all weekends this weekend, and everything is happening at once. Our cooker arrived on Thursday, only 2 weeks late. PJ was first thinking of picking it up on Friday, but changed his mind on Thursday afternoon and went into Hobart to pick it up. As it weighs 285 kg it sat on the back of the Ute for the night, as we started thinking of how we could possibly unload it and get it into the house (with steps all around).

On Friday, yes, Friday the 13th, I said to PJ that I hoped the calf wouldn't be born on that day as it was bad luck, and as it happens Emma still looked the same, bigger udder, bigger belly, but just as friendly and just as hungry. I got a phonecall later in the evening that our trees had arrived, and we could pick them up on Sunday - the day we have set aside to build a calfpen and milking stall.

At night we had dinner over at Annie's. Annie was cooking away and we were playing games with Jazzy, memory games and what not. We were quite tired, so went home at about 10.30pm (early for the countryside!!!) and as we were tucked up in bed, I was about to fall asleep when I heard a huge MOOOH from outside. I sat bolt upright in bed, and said, 'That was Emma!' PJ was about asleep and said he hadn't heard a thing (but then, that's not so unusual for him). I listened out for a while longer, but couldn't hear any more so decided to go to sleep. After all, we had checked on Em in the evening, and gave her a bit of hay because it was so cold. Nothing was showing at that time, and she had an appetite so we thought, it doesn't look like this night either.

Saturday morning I opened the curtains, and saw Emma in her usual spot under the tree. The other girls weren't there yet, but 8am on the dot, I saw all the grand ladies of the Blues by the fence, waiting for their little treat. So imagine my surprise when I walked out, and saw Emma, and a little red and white calf next to her!! It had arrived, and she had done it all by herself in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately it's a boy, which means that he will end up in the pot. Having part Jersey in him won't make for a very quiet bull, so BLD (Breakfast Lunch and Dinner) it will have to be. He is adorable though. Emma was fine with us being in her paddock and checking out her, and her calf. He is soft and has little Jersey spots around his eyes, and is just such a striking colour. Emma has a really soft mooh that she uses to talk to her calf, and he responds to her, it's lovely to see. All the girls were lined up on the other side of the fence, and were eager to check out the new arrival. Our new boy walked over to the fence and moo'd at them, and there was a loud chorus of moohs from everybody in the herd, like a big hello.

Emma didn't seem to care too much about him though. He was lying on the ground most of the time, shivering. She had cleaned him, but if he made a move towards her udder, she'd walk away and leave him alone. We watched this for 4 hours, and got increasingly worried. Annie reckoned we should let Emma do her thing, so we had left them alone but I did check out of the window every so often, which really turned out to be very often. Steve and Marjorie were supposed to come over for tea and playing music, but I got increasingly worried. PJ, after finding on the Internet (my cow book didn't bother to discuss this) that calves need their first drink of milk with colostrum in the first 6 hours after birth, also started to think something wasn't quite right, so we went outside to see what we could do. She didn't want a bar of having a rope around her neck so we could look at her udder, so we decided to put her in the race so we could check that she could actually give milk. I had cancelled poor Marjorie and Steve but we thought if anything is wrong we really need to know and be ready to do something.

I had phoned Ian but naturally he was out, and PJ phoned Jeff who said 'oh she'll be alright'. Jeff has lost quite a few calves though so that didn't sit well with us either. I phoned Annie but she had gone out as well, I guess that's Sod's Law for you. We decided to put Emma in the race to check that at least she wouldn't have mastitis or something like that, and to check that all her teats were working, and right at that moment Ian walked through the door having received our message and coming straight over. He checked over junior, and apart from thinking he's a huge calf and a bit on the skinny side, everything seemed ok, although it would also be good to see a poo to confirm he'd had some milk. But he too said it was a good idea to check the udder, so off we went to the cattle race, where we found that two teats worked, but the back teats were very tense and full, and no milk was coming out. Milking came surprisingly easy to me (must have been good to be doing pottery all those years and learning massage!), and after working on the back teats for a while I managed to move the blockage and lovely milk started squirting out. Needless to say, I squirted it in a bottle first, one handed, but once we were brave enough to put a bucket there, it was only a matter of time before Emma put her foot in it and spilled the whole precious load. And this was even with Ian having tied one of her legs and holding it so she wouldn't be able to kick.

All in all, we had some spare colostrum now, so that if indeed junior hadn't been fed we could feed him some in the afternoon. Ian reckoned that he should be feeding around 3.30pm, so that was something to check out for, as was some yellow poo. Emma seemed closer to the calf after we'd released the pressure on her udder, and they seemed happy together. We managed with the three of us to move the oven inside, which was hard work but a lot of fun and quite an achievement too! Just as we were having a beer and a natter, I thought, it's 4pm, let's see how Emma is doing, and I saw junior drink. PJ herded Emma in with the other cows at that stage, and shouted that junior was having a bright yellow poo, so that made for an entirely successful happy day in the end.

We asked Ursula and Ian over for dinner to say a big thankyou, and as we were thinking of names Ian brought up the fact that you'd get nice porterhouse steaks from such a big calf - and so of course the first thing that came to my mind was Porter! Of course! Cole Porter from a House cow - Porter House for short. And although it sounds terrible to talk about a little animal like that, I know that he'll have a wonderful life and that's worth a lot too. People eat meat, they're omnivores after all, and I'd rather eat something that is very good and has had a good life than the poor animals that are pumped full of antibiotics and have a terrible tortured life. Something people don't think or care about when they get their steaks from the supermarket because if you did, it'd break your heart, and would make you question our current methods of producing food.

Anyway... Ursula said it might be worth milking Emma every day already because she can still develop mastitis and there is way too much milk for one calf - and so it also helps in maintaining the milk production. So, I need to get wrapped up, PJ and I are going in the field, give a treat and start milking!

Check out the photos.....

Moodles!!