This is our first meeting with the orphan Belle!
It is calving season, and Belle was born last Saturday. Her mother was 20 years old, and sadly, she died after giving birth to Belle. Now Belle is being bottle fed. She is absolutely adorable-with a bottom row of tiny, clean white teeth, a big sloppy tongue, and tight curly hair.
She weighs about 80 lbs, I’m guessing, and will grow to be huge!!. She is an Angus Charolais cross, getting her curly hair from her Charolais mother. Now she is being fed 2x a day, every twelve hours, and gets a huge warm bottle of milk replacement, which will later be supplemented with grain when she gets a little older. Each bottle is about 2 quarts, and these little calves down it in no time – and just like petulant little children, stamp their feet and have a little hissy fit, when the bottle is empty!!! I think they stay on the bottle for about 8 weeks, but will have to get back to you on that!!!
I went over to say hello to Belle last night, before her dinner got there, and when I opened the little “window” she was literally trying to jump out- she was that anxious for her bottle!!
The farm has another orphan, a little bull named Rambo,(he’s the little guy pictured above, behind the gate) who is full Angus, and 4 weeks old. His fur is shiny, smooth and long, compared to Belle. But, at 3 weeks older, he is not all that much bigger than Belle. That will change tho! He is kept at the barn, separate from the others right now, is still on the bottle, and gets a pail of grain at each meal. Rambo is also adorable, and has an ear tag- he will be sold when he is old enough- I guess one bull on the farm is enough!!!
Yesterday, Belle was taken out of her pen to run around (she belongs to our neighbor) and was gamboling and leaping around in our field- and I missed it!!! But, we did get to participate in feeding time, and hope to again. I’ll put up more pix of Belle if I can, to keep you posted on her progress.
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