It has taken a couple of days, but we have decided to name Angelica's calf Georgia.  She is a little sweetie and allows you to pat her in the paddock.  I am hoping that a daughter of a friend who has taken a keen interest in cattle handling might show her as they share the same name.  It might be double lucky for Georgia.

Billi is swishing her tail this morning, maybe although I am not counting on it, she might calf

Well after quite a few days of calf watch and nights I might add, Angelica has finally calved.  A polled black heifer born about 10 am this morning.  She is by AI to Bircham Ballantyne and the first calf we have sired by him in the KP herd.  She has got to be one of the longest calves I have seen born and extremely wide hip, thurl, pin.  I am waiting for Sue to name her, so stay tuned.

Billi is still fat and ready to pop, hope she does not take too long as we have hay to bale and cart, so a very busy time here at the farm

We also have Cameron and Fenella Sept arriving from WA on Sunday, so it would be nice to have all our farming jobs wrapped up by then.

Kirup Park Freedom who was due to calve on Christmas Day has calved this morning, a polled red bull.  She is currently cleaning him and he is trying to stand up.  We will see what he grows like.

KP Angelica and KP Billi Vanilli are also due on Christmas Day, if they are in calf to their AI with Bircham Ballantyne semen, Angelica looks closer than Billi but we will have to wait and see.

I will let you know what we get, we are staying home for Christmas to keep an eye these two cows.

Mark has gone up the paddock to mow our hay crop, so that will be great to get that all baled and in the shed between Christmas and New Year.

Well Gizmo is going so well, he decided this morning to pose for pictures.  And embracing the Christmas Spirit he looked extremely cute as a reindeer.  I wonder what Cue-tee thought!!

Well there is a positive to every negative, and although the Giz did not feed from his mother for a few days, it gave us the opportunity to milk her.  We started hand milking and feeding him, but have now got her on the milking machine, and he is feeding himself ad lib.  He is still with her full-time, so not locked up at all and we got 4 litres the first day, and that satyed about the same for a few days, but this morning we got 7 litres.  It is so nice to be drinking our own milk and I am hoping to make my first batch of cheese before Christmas.  That is if I can find time in between carting hay.

I will let you know how I go.

Our shortie Rawlings Contessa Cue-tee calved in the early hours of the morning on Thursday, I know this as I was a little concerned that she was so large and either had one large calf in there or two small ones, so spent the night setting the alarm and getting up ervey hour or so.  Just before 1 am a little short legged bull calf arrived and I checked her about 1.15 am and he was cleaned and up.  All seemed well and I went to bed for a better sleep, knowing mother and calf were fine. 

The next morning he seemed fine and we left her to her own devices.  By the afternoon it was obvious that he had not yet had a drink, looking very sucked in and lacking energy.  It appeared that he had spent quite a bit of time sucking on her leg and not on the udder and had used up his energy.  Lucky for us Cue-tee has such a great disposition and had no issue with us milking her and then trying to feed him, still no joy he did not want to drink.  After about an hour of him resisting the teat and bottle, we finally managed to get him feeding.  By this time we had about 2 litres of colostrum and he guzzled the lot.  Mark fed him before coming to bed and this morning he seems to be feeding from the bottle much better, all we have to do now is show him were the milk bar is on his mum and life will be that much easier.  Thankfully we have our converted barn and both Cue-tee and the boy are happy tucked up in there with hay, water, straw bedding and buckets of treats.  We will continue to feed him until he gets onto his mum, hopefully it won't take too long.

Welcome to this little fella who we have named Gizmo or the Giz for short, pardon the pun!!