They Are Here! The Three Amigos~Our 4-H Calves!

Monday was a big day on the farm for Tink and Bear.  After school, we hauled our cow trailer over to Benton Dairy, and Cindy helped us pick out three calves for Tink to show in her first year of 4-H.

We are so excited to have Benton Dairy in our county. The family is so friendly and are already giving back to the community in so many ways.  The three youngest members go to our school, and the two youngest are classmates of Tink and Bear.

Here are our newest borders:

Baby boy was only 48 hrs. old!  I didn't really see what a cute face he had until I edited his picture!

The next bull calf is a favorite of Tall Guy's because he is a true black and white Holstein.  That's the kind of dairy cows we had here on the farm when Tall Guy and his family had their dairy.

And here is Miss Thing, the oldest of the bunch.  She was a New Year's Eve baby.

Here they are in their new home.  Miss Thing just pranced and danced around her new pen, while the two boys just kind of stood  around and took in their new living space.

Then we had a few watchers up in the peanut gallery to welcome our new guests. See one of our wild barn cats lurking behind the two spoiled ones in the first picture?  He/She is up in the hay(or now straw) loft.

 Another wild one!

Ok, Time to feed these guys.  All are still on the bottle and will be for at least their first 6-8 weeks.  We also put a small bucket of grain, mostly cracked corn, in each pen so they can get a whiff of it and start getting curious about what else there is to eat.

 "Country boy shake it for me now. Shake it for me now. Shake it for me!"  Hee hee!  Sorry, just couldn't resist!

Now comes the learning part for everyone:  getting the calf to take to the bottle.  Baby boy and Blacky are still a bit new to it all, but Miss Thing knows exactly what she wants, and she wants it ASAP!

I wish you could have heard Bear giggling as she struggled to hang on to Miss Thing's bottle.  It was a pretty good tug of war between the two of them.

The girls usually go out and help with the afternoon/evening feeding since they have to get on the bus at 7:10, but guess what???????

This morning, we have a two hour delay, so instead of letting them sleep in, Tall Guy had me wake up our little farm girls at regular time so they can go out and feed them this morning.  WOO!

WHAT????

DANG!

I was just invited to join in the fun!  (insert whiny voice) "I have to get out of my P.J.s too?  REALLY?"  ;-)

Guess I had better push the Publish button and help get these little doggies moving.  Ah, the life of a farm family.  Have a great and glorious day!

NEWS FLASH!  I have just been informed that the calves all now have official names.  Baby Boy is now Jerry and Blacky is Tom.  Miss Thing's new name is Ladybug.   OYE!  These are the day of our lives! ;-)