Our new arrival

We had severe weather come through last night but that did not stop our highland cow from doing what comes naturally. This morning when we went to move the cattle paddock to a new location, Peter was the first to notice a new little “dude” strolling between the paddock and the woods.

Here he is.

There he is – the long awaited calf of our Highland cow “Brea”. I say long awaited because when we bought the cow in November we were told she was due to deliver in late November early December.

Stout little fellow

Mama and the little "Dude"

It's been a trying morning, time for a rest.

Eagerly waiting to get a glance at the new baby.

But wait, what is this? All is not as it seems.

Peter is installing electric fencing to divide the paddock down the middle.

We noticed some odd behavior by the other three bovines toward the little one. The dun one (we call her Irene as in Irene Dunn) poked at the little one. The small calf pushed at the little one and the bull (the father no less) wanted to play rugby with the little one. Trouble was that he was using the new calf as the ball and tossed him around with his horns. It was sad to watch the defenseless little calf  get abused so easily. It might have been that the other 3 were claiming their place in the herd pecking order and wanted to make sure he knew his place was at the utmost bottom. Nevertheless, we decided to separate mother and calf from the rest, so Peter installed a dividing fence down the middle.

I’m sure the others will want to post about the calf too so I’ll quit here. Hope you enjoyed the pictures and hope you have a great day.