Witnessing the Birth Of A New Calf!

We're definitely in baby calf season. And today's video is sponsored by Factor. Welcome back to the farm. It has been a busy, busy couple of days, and I really have to catch you guys up. But first let's start with these stunning large white farm dogs. Hey guys, you both look so beautiful. Both Toby dog and Abby dog have had their spring groomings, which keeps them nice and shiny looking and gets their winter coats out. But that's probably the least interesting thing that's happened here on the farm over the last couple of days, because we have even more calves here on the farm. And yes, I very intentionally said calves, plural. I know, Judy Barn Cat. It got to be freezing again last night. That's not going to stop you from drinking out of the cow holes. Oh, we have a problem on our hands. Well, about three days ago, Audrey, who's our boss cow, she actually had her calf and it was this beautiful little bull calf. There's Audrey right there. Hey, Audrey, where's your calf? There he is sleeping in the corner. How's it going? He's like, Mom, come help me. The weird guy's trying to hang out with me again. This little fellow was born just the other day. Would you look at this? We got another cow this morning. Who's the mama? It's either going to be Audrey or Annabelle. My guess is it's Audrey because Annabelle still looks gigantic. Hey, little calf. How you doing? Hi. We got a little bull calf. You were just born. OK, Audrey, I'm going to assume this is your little fellow. I'm not going to hurt him. What do you think of the newest resident there, Baby B? We're going to have to give you a name, pal. Yeah, we're definitely in baby calf season here on the farm. Isn't it right, Baby B? Here we have brother and sister. Ariel's like, get out of here. You're not mine. Got his mom distracted right now. She loves the bucket. I'm just sort of coming over here to check up on him, make sure he's fully healthy, wipe his umbilical cord down with iodine. Keeps trying to drink off of Ariel and Ariel's not having it. Yeah, they know really clearly who's their calf and who's not, and they will shoo them away if they don't belong to them. We'll get you back with your mom in a minute. And then here we've got our other mama cow, Anne of Green Gables, with her little son. His name is Elliot Smith because he's just a little needle in the hay. You go find your mama. She's the one over there. Not that one. They kind of look alike. That's not your mama. Oh, I love you, my little fierce predator. And so, yes, Audrey's got a nice little calf. You'll see he's a nice little beefy boy. So, Audrey, I'm pretty sure is not full Scottish Highland. I think she's got some black angus in her. If you look at our little calf here, his head is kind of almost stouter and whiter than the other calves that we have. But I'm sure you guys are wondering, well, what am I going to name him? And as you guys know, the rules on our farm are all the heifer calves get B names. So the first calf that was ever born on our farm is Belinda Carlisle here. She's a little over two years old now, and she's going to actually start breeding this year for the first time. And so if you're a first generation cow, you have an A name. And if you're a second generation, like a heifer, like Belinda, you get a B name or oh, my other little favorite here, baby B. Hi, sweetie. How are you doing? When Belinda Carlisle has heifer calves, they're going to have C names. But for the boys, because they're mostly going to end up as steers, which means they'll be used as beef, I give them the names of dead rock stars just as a gentle reminder of their mortality. My buddy Pinbo named the first calf of the year, Elliot Smith. But in that video where Elliot was born, you guys gave me so many good name suggestions. I have like a bank to pull from. And so I've decided to name him Prince, which was a suggestion that several of you had. So, yeah, meet little Prince or I guess Prince Rogers Nelson, if you want to go full names on him. Hey, Astrid, any interest in a treat? At least you're not running away from me like you used to, Astrid. This is how it starts. This is how you become friends with me. I start with these little green cubes. Oh, you don't even want that. I know, baby B, there's so much new life on this farm. But don't worry, I still got time for you, girl. I'm going to get the brush and brush you out later today. All right, you see that little gal scampering around? So even though she's standing by Anna Green Gables right now, that's actually Ariel's calf right over there. Hey, Annabelle, we'll talk about your issues in a couple of minutes. Don't worry. Be patient, girl. You'll get your time. So she's a female and she needed a B name. And you guys came up with a whole bunch of good suggestions since her mama is Ariel right here. I figured it'd be appropriate to give her a Disney themed name. And so her name's going to be Belle. So this is baby B and that is baby Belle. She's gotten to the point where she's in her little skittish calf phase. She's got so much energy, too. It's so cute to see him sproinging around and running around like crazy like that. Part of what makes spring so much fun. Isn't that right, Ariel? One of the other things I've done in the last couple of days is I've come through and spread all of those old hay bales all around here. So this is the area that Alfred dug up and we did the work to put in a new water line so that we have a second one over here. And so I spread all of this old hay that was about two years old that I didn't want to feed my cattle anymore. So now it's just serving as mulch. I also threw a bunch of grass seed down. And so very soon this will be an extension of the bird yard. This is particularly going to be an area that's going to be more and more focused as like expanded nursery space for goslings and baby chicks, like after they're old enough to come out of the brooder and spend time outside. So like, you know, three week old, four week old birds will be able to run around in here as like a big old playpen. Oh, no, I said playpen. And that is Abby Dog's favorite word. Hi, sweetie. You look so gosh darn pretty. Yeah, buddy, you look pretty, too. It's like they're just like radiating sunlight as it bounces off their pure white snow fur. Don't worry, you'll get dirty enough just soon enough. Oh, Abby. Oh, dear. I think everything looks OK. That was a close call. You'll notice that the quackens let themselves out already this morning. Ever since all the snow melted, they figured out a way to sneak out of the hoop coop. They kind of let themselves out every morning now. I'm genuinely not too worried about it. In probably about four weeks, they're going to be free ranging around here full time outside. And so it's fine. I'm just taking it as another sign of spring water. And yes, I'm still loving my new water system. While we're pumping water, let me tell you about our dinner last night, because it came to us courtesy of today's video sponsor, Factor. While I love cooking from scratch on the crazy days of spring, it is really hard to make a farm fresh meal every single night. And so that's why I love today's video sponsor, Factor. Factor makes meeting your nutrition goals easier than ever by delivering fresh, never frozen, dietitian approved meals right to your doorstep. The Factor team works with gourmet chefs to take ingredients with integrity and combine them in ways that are absolutely delicious. And so with Factor, you're able to have a quick restaurant quality meal ready in just a couple of minutes. So you're saving on kitchen time, but you're also not short changing yourself when it comes to both taste and nutrition. And so, yes, during the rush of spring, when I don't have time to cook every single meal, Factor has been a game changer. And the Factor lineup has 35 different meal options and 60 different add ons. So you'll always have new flavors that you can explore. So because Allison was working at the hospital today, I'm going to make dinner for both of us. Tonight, Allison's going to have the vegan mushroom marsala, and I'm going to choose the Thai roasted vegetable curry. And just watch how ridiculously easy these things are to cook in the oven. And it really is just that easy. So head on over to Factor75.com or click the link down below. If you use the promo code GOLDSHAWFARM50, you'll be able to save 50% off of your first order, plus 20% off your next box while your subscription is active. Rise and grind, weirdos. Not just yet, but very soon they're going to have to move because I need to take over this space for some new baby goslings. And so I'm actually thinking about building a new weird chicken coop specifically designed for weird chickens. It's going to go somewhere probably like right around here. I'm actually thinking of building a geodesic dome for my weird chickens, and I'd be very curious to hear what you guys think about that idea. I don't know. I might not do that either, but it's definitely been something I've been thinking about a lot lately. All right, guys, let's go greet your birds. Morning, birds. It's funny, you know, that black chicken and that Rhode Island red, they are always the first two to jump right on top of the bucket and try to eat. It's always very funny. Oh, we have some goose on goose violence going here. Reverse release of the quacken! I know that this is chaos of my own creation, but yeah, the birds are going nuts these days when it comes to feeding time. This right here is the downside of having the ducks outside. They just drop eggs everywhere. Oh, see right there? That's Tarp Goose. She's the mama who's sitting on a nest back there. If she goes outside to get some water, I might go check on her nest. I keep checking behind me to make sure she doesn't like sort of come storming back at me. All right, let's see what we got in here. All right, we got more duck eggs. More duck eggs here. Duck egg here. Duck egg here. A couple more duck eggs right here. Another duck egg here. Finally, a goose egg. This is turning out to be a very bad spring for goose eggs. And please allow me to explain why. So you see, I have an incubator stuffed full of goose eggs, and I'm just not getting more eggs for my next class. My whole plan on the farm this year was to have a whole bunch of eggs that I could hatch, and I would basically put out a new class of goslings each week. I'm actually kind of worried that I'm going to have enough eggs for my next class of goslings for later this week. If that doesn't go right, it will seriously force me to rethink my farm's business plan this year. Did you guys look at Pablo Barn Cat? He's seeming pretty fat and sassy. Hey, pal. Whoa, hey. All right. Whenever you're lying down and offering your belly, I know it's a trap. I know with baby Ginny, that is never an issue. All right, it's breakfast time for the Peach and Barn Cats. Hey, eat your bowl, let Pablo eat his bowl. So despite the fact that I've had three healthy calves born on the farm so far, I got to admit there's one thing I'm a little bit disappointed with, and that's the fact that I have yet to actually capture a birth live while it's happening. Every single one of our calves was born basically overnight. Like I check on the mama at like, say, 10, 11 o'clock at night, come back out the next morning and boof, there's already a happy little calf right there. But all of that changed yesterday when I was coming back from the groomer with Abby. Come on, Abs, down you go. Oh, wow. You are so sparkly white right now. You look beautiful, darling. Let me show off your new look to Toby Dog. You both look really good. Come on, inside. Look at these shiny white dogs. It's always the prettiest time of year, at least for livestock guardian dogs. And so after letting Abby back into the dog yard, I actually came out here to check on Annabelle, because before I left to go to the groomer, it looked like she was maybe starting to get ready to go. You're going to plop, I can tell. I was just watching you try to get up. You could barely get up. And that's when it happened. Yes, I finally was able to capture the birth of a calf here on our farm. And honestly, along with the solar eclipse that we had earlier this month, April has just been this month of crazy, significant events on the farm. And yeah, it's pretty incredible. And here we have baby and mama right now. And they both look like they're doing really well. Here, mama, you deserve a treat. You had a good day yesterday. I'm really proud of you. Don't worry, mama, I'm not being rude. Just saying hi. Hey, buddy. Hi. I believe she's a heifer calf. I haven't quite gotten a good look at her yet, but I'm pretty sure she's a heifer calf. And so that means she's going to need a bee name. So if you guys have any suggestions, leave them down below. Hi, sweetie. How are you? Whoa, hey. I don't know if you saw that. Bonnie just tried to butt bee and then bee tried to get out of the way. So I got to be a little bit careful when I'm on the ground with these guys. Hi, sweetheart. You like scritches? Scritches right on your neck? Yeah. Rather than trying to brush the calves, if I just get them used to me, particularly get them used to scratching their neck, I think that might make it easier to brush train them later. Isn't that right, little girl? But yeah, it is super rewarding to have this whole area filled with babies. Everybody seems like they're doing really well. Of course, the one chore I've got to deal with is be on poop patrol this morning. In the winter months, it's actually pretty easy to do poop patrol because I can just come in here with a shovel and scoop up every single one. But in the spring months, it's a little bit more complicated. It's more like raking leaves. They got to come through here, make them into piles and then scoop up those piles. Now that we've had that last calf born, I'm probably going to get these girls out of here pretty soon. Give them another, I don't know, a week or two just to let everybody get a little bit more acclimated, and then I'll start putting them out to pasture. With the arrival of Annabelle's calf, that leaves me in a place where I now have like the four calves that I was expecting early already all set in here. I'm still expecting my two Charlay cows, the two new white cows that I bought, Amelia and Astrid. I still believe that they're pregnant, and so I'm expecting them to calve, but they won't calve until later this summer. And if Amanda Hugginkiss, who actually is right over here, right behind me, Amanda might be pregnant. But if she is, she's going to be later than everybody else because she had baby B back in late June. And so those three calves, if they come, I'm expecting them to be up on pasture. And so with all the cows up on pasture, I won't have to do this anymore.