The Adorable

Every herd has cute calves and we are no exception.

There are 4 huggable calves here, none with any official names, but all with lots of personality...and a story to tell.     They are wonderful entertainment and have given me hours of smiles after a rough day at the office.

Lets start with the calf I call "Panda."  She is the oldest of the 4 calves.
I think she was born in late July.     Before I got here.
It took me forever to figure out who her mother was as there are some unusual relationships going on with this herd.

Again, these calves are not mine, so I do not know the factual details about them ( date of birth, whose the daddy, etc ). All I do know is strictly by observation.

So now you know why I call her Panda....

I am guessing that her daddy was a traveling man and was probably an Angus.

She has his color, but her moms mellow personality.

Panda is calm, smart and gets along with all the other calves ( including mine ).

She figured out how to get under the electric wire in the hoop barn to snack on the rolls of hay, any time day or night.   of course she snacks on the inside middle of each roll.  Its the best part....  This explains why she is much larger than the other 3 calves in her peer group.

When the cows were all grazing out in the lush fields it was near impossible to see who was nursing who from a distance.  When the herd moved into the barnyard field for the colder weather a few things became abundantly clear.

I witnessed her mom looking for her, every day. 
Panda isn't always where she should be.

Most of the time her mom is at one end of the field and Panda is on the other side, or in the hay barn snacking or sleeping in the sun by the equipment shed.

Most calves stay near their moms.    Panda acts more like an independant teenager.  She never looks for her mom.

Took me forever to get a photo of them together.  It was such a rare sight.

Her mom is one of the twin Hereford cows here.  They are identical, but this Hereford has a dot on her rear leg and on her brisket...so I call her Dot.

Dot is a great mom.  She doesn't allow the other cows to push Panda around when she is nursing and she insists that Panda go with her to get a drink of water.  Panda girl usually has other plans, but mom is persistant and they come up to the water tub together for some refreshments.  Then she immediately trots off to get into some mischief with 2 of my older Simmental calves.

Yesterday Panda somehow got herself inside the hayrack.  I was in shock when I saw it and didn't pull my camera out fast enough because I was more concerned about getting her out of the rack before the big black cows boxed her in and caused a "situation."     If Panda gets in it again I will take a photo before I jump the fence to get her out of the hayrack.  I will post it here.