Hydeaway News

Hi, it's me, Firn. I used to put all of our Hydeaway News on my blog in between going on and on about horses, but I thought that it was much more accessible here. This page is 100% dedicated to cattle - arrivals of new calves, big decisions, changing bulls, shows, etc. The news page is newer than most of the news but our history, though not long, is too crammed full of escapades to relate here. This is after all the news page, not the olds page.

Click Here to go to the even newer News Page: the Hydeaway Farm Blog

September-December 2011

January-May 2012

June 22, 2012: Blowing Away

A demented wind swooped down on us last night and is now howling all around the house, to all appearances trying to blow us clean off the hill. On a more serious note, the wind is not good for our newly-weaned calves; a nasty pneumonia is sweeping through them, and though the heifers have yet to fall victim, we're nursing three very sick ox calves and lost a poor little ox this week. We have no idea why the oxen are the ones getting sick; on Hydeaway Farm, we treat oxen and heifers exactly the same, giving them the same inoculants and treating them both just as quickly if they get sick, feeding them the same, keeping them in the same conditions - everything.

Hatter, Kirieklapper and Davey are all very sick, though Hatter looks better. Unfortunately, all three have been susceptible to lung problems all their short lives (they're between three and six months old). The poor calf that died was also one of the lung problems. We separated the heifers and the oxen (as the oxen are the ones getting sick) and this far none of the heifers have done anything more than some coughing, though two or three of them - Blue Star and Hallelujah for example - are also susceptible to lung diseases.

With weekly antibiotic and careful nursing, we have a good chance of pulling at least Hatter through, and as Kirie and Davey are still taking in milk (we put them back on milk as they were so thin) and some feed, they've got a fighting chance.

The biggest disadvantage of the wind, though, would be a wildfire. Fires sweep through the Highveld every winter, decimating crops, grazing and even buildings. Nothing unites the farmers of Heidelberg like a wildfire and we are very thankful for that; it was only with our kind colleagues' support that we survived the wildfire that burnt virtually our whole farm to the ground in Hydeaway's early days.

Calvings and keeping track of them has become very interesting now that the A. I. calves are starting to arrive; whereas before they were all from the same bull, now we have the excitement of many different bulls' progeny in our calf sheds.

Julius

Justoo gave us a big, strong bullcalf named Julius. His father is Eclipes-P. From Julius onward, we're giving our bull calves to a man named Jan whom we've employed as a sort of general fix-it-up chappie and burden-decreaser; an expert farmer himself, Jan is a wonderful help. It's a sad fact that you can barely give a Jersey bull calf away; this is why so many of them end up in the veal market before they can even have their first meal. Our bull calves do not and never will go for veal. We will shortly introduce sexed semen to limit the amount of bull calves born as much as is possible.

Hannibal

Hennah had a bull calf named Hannibal, also by Eclipes-P,

Brutus

and Bunny Chow had a bull calf named Brutus, by our own bull King Arthur.

Hannibal and Brutus

It was very cold the day Brutus was born so he and Hannibal were tucked up snug as bugs in piles of hay.

Moriah and Special are flourishing,

Moriah and Special

although Moriah's nose, it has been discovered, is on skew. She has no problem eating or breathing so the odd snout won't influence her quality of life, but she sure isn't winning any beauty contests. However with the little quirk she will easily win any cuteness contests.

Ohio, Oepsie's whopping daughter, was added to the ranks of Eclipes-P calves,

Ohio

and to our immense delight we found out that many of Eclipes's calves are polled (have no horns). The P at the end of his name stands for Polled, so we were hoping for hornless heifers, and about half of them have proved to be polled. All our calves are dehorned when they are a month or two months old, since horns are nothing but trouble - cows squabble sometimes, but even in a mild fight, a horn can tear open a cow's skin or udder in just seconds. Dehorning is an unpleasant job and, though only for a few seconds, painful to the calf, so we're very glad to be rid of some of it.

Obedience

I know this is an awful picture, but this is Obedience, Orabella's daughter by Fantom.

Marita

And this is Marita, Mooinooi's daughter by Mecca - this is our first calf from Mecca. She is very big and has such a lot of personality!

We now have about 40 calves on milk, and when they're all little and brown, it's desperately difficult to tell them apart until they shed their baby hair and get some colours in. So for the smallest calves' shed, we've put in place a helpful if rather old-fashioned method of identification. Each calf's name is written on a blackboard above its pen (pink for girls, blue for boys) alongside the mother's name in pink and the father's name in blue. "Botterkoppie" was quite a nightmare to fit on, I can tell you.

While we were away for the weekend, Elizabeth presented the workers with a little bull calf by Eclipes. Edvard Grigg was a big, healthy calf, though very sleepy.

Lollipop also had a bull calf named Ludwig, by King Arthur. Ludwig is teeny-tiny, but has plenty of personality to make up for both his size and his dopey friend, Edvard. Since Ludwiggy is so little we've decided to keep him for two weeks instead of one, just to give him a bit of an extra boost.

Ludwig

June 3, 2012: Hydeaway Jerseys proudly presents...

... our first calves by a really top-notch A. I. bull, namely, Maack Dairy Eclipes-P-ET. Four of our heifers in calf to Eclipes gave birth to four gorgeous heifer calves. Thank You, God!

The first is Hydeaway Good Gracious out of Hydeaway Good Golly (whose mother, Grieta [RIP], was blind, incidentally).

The second is the unbelievably adorable (and not at all photogenic) Hydeaway Moriah out of Hydeaway Miss Molly (from the Bontes family, Bontes being the Logo Cow).

Hydeaway Charlize Theron out of Hydeaway Seasonal Chasse (from the Shadow family) was next to be born. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have a decent photo of her. And last of all, also from the Shadow family, her mother being Hydeaway Secret Samba, is Hydeaway Special, also all pretty with white spots. (Hydes being Hydes, we are pretty much more excited about the spots than the pedigree).