Introducing New Babies to Surrogate Mothers

After we had their sons slaughtered for meat, the mother cows still produced enough milk for them, even on top of what we got by milking. We wanted to try to let Cortana, the one cow who has a baby due in June, dry out and rest for a while, but she is the one who got mastitis recently, so we can't yet. We now have two baby beef calves on loan from Nevada County Free Range Beef, to help ensure milk production stays high in Betty, the one cow who is not bred back yet, the one who had the mummified calf.

We have been letting the two two-month old beef calves nurse off the cows morning and night for a few weeks, since they arrived. We were waiting until the steers were gone before we let them out with the big cows because we thought the steers might hurt them. But now we are ready, especially since the weather is nice again.

We had let them out in the pasture a couple of times with the cows for just an hour or two. They all, even the big cows, ran around and bucked and played. They were happy to be out. Yesterday, we finally let them out together for the whole afternoon. They stayed together as a herd, and when the babies strayed off, the mamas went looking for them, softly mooing to them. So, they are at least looking out for the babies now. The calves tried to nurse, while out at pasture, but the mamas would not let them... yet. I will hopefully be able to report success with that soon!