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After arriving earlier than planned, a County Longford calf is now thriving on the farm of one of the Irish Farmers Journal’s Farmer Writers, James Mimnagh.
James said that the calf was obviously quite small when it was born and the cow hadn’t any milk. She weighed between 15kg and 20kg.
“Having a dairy herd means that I would always have some frozen colostrum, so while the cow was licking the calf, the colostrum was gradually defrosting.
A picture of the calf, now clearly thriving and weighing 90kg.
“Initially, when the cow started producing milk, we had to elevate the calf up under the cow to enable the calf to suck, but she eventually grew to be able to reach on her own.
“Owing to her small nature, she was prone to escaping out to the cow on occasions, as I would restrict suckling to morning and evening to improve conception rates at breeding and to encourage the calves to eat concentrates.”
Thriving
The calf is a Simmental-cross heifer calf out of James’ own Simmental stock bull, who has Curaheen Agenda as his sire.
The cow is an AI-bred Limousin cow, whose sire is MBV Millbrook Vic.
The calf weighs approximately 90kg now.
“She has come a long way since birth, when she was being covered with a calf jacket and fed with a bottle, and will remain in the herd for many years to come, as a suckler cow, please God,” James said.
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