Where's My Mother

by Kathy White

Title

Where's My Mother

Artist

Kathy White

Medium

Photograph - Photography--greeting Cards Or Notes Are Cheaper By The Dozen!

Description

Where's My Mother? is what I titled this photograph I took of this adorable little baby calf. He looks so little and helpless and was cutely prancing around so....I was not sure which one of the herd was his mother.
Calf or calves are the young of domestic cattle. "Calf" is the term used from birth to weaning, when it becomes known as a weaner or weaner calf, though in some areas the term "calf" may be used until the animal is a yearling. The birth of a calf is known as calving. A young female calf from birth until she has had a calf of her own is called a heifer.
Calves are born after a gestation of nine months. They usually stand within a few minutes of calving, and suckle within an hour. However, for the first few days they are not easily able to keep up with the rest of the herd, so young calves are often left hidden by their mothers, who visit them several times a day to suckle them. By a week old the calf is able to follow the mother all the time.
Some calves are ear tagged soon after birth, especially those that are stud cattle in order to correctly identify their dams (mothers), or in areas where tagging is a legal requirement for cattle. A calf must have the very best of everything until it is at least eight months old if it is to reach its maximum potential. Typically when the calves are about two months old they are branded, ear marked, castrated and vaccinated.
Baby calf raising can be a hard task to achieve. If the calf doesn't have the mother to feed it the first 2 1/2 days survival is slim. There is a substance in the mothers milk called colostrum, the calf needs this substance to build an immunity system. This colostrum is very important in the first hrs of feeding for the calf to survive. Calves are born with little defense or immunity against disease. They acquire resistance to disease from their dam through timely and adequate intakes of high quality colostrum, their mother's first milk.
Calves must also have water. Calves will begin to drink water between their feeds of milk from one to two weeks of age. Lack of water will cause the death of a calf faster than the lack of any other nutrient. By six weeks of age, a calf may be drinking abut four litres of water per day. Only clean, fresh drinking water must be given. Water is also especially important for calves if they have diarrhea or if they go off their milk for any reason.
You should always house calves in as clean, dry and fresh environments as possible. To ensure the well-being of the calf at birth, the way you handle the calf during the calving process will be very important. Any sudden movement or change in the way you move the calf can hurt it or even break a part of its fragile body. The newborn calf is just as vulnerable as a newborn human.

Uploaded

June 6th, 2013

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