March was a busy month for us with calving. It was still quite cold at night so we were doing night checks at two-hour intervals.
Our first heifer calved March 6 and we had to pull the calf. That same afternoon the newest member of Eppich family, Ian, was baptized. It was a beautiful ceremony and afterward we celebrated with a supper with Ian’s Godparents: Aaron Sesula and Gregory’s Auntie Norma.
A couple of days later we had two more heifers calve and had to pull their calves as well. They were just too big for the heifers to have on their own. We were watching the heifers pretty closely, but unfortunately we missed one. Gregory found the heifer, who did manage to physically have the calf, but it had perished due to the long birth.
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March 26 Gregory took Joseph and James over to the new pasture to work on a stretch of fence through the slough. On April 1 I thought that Gregory was trying to get me with an April Fool’s joke when he came in from a night check and told me that a heifer had twins. It turns out that it wasn’t a joke. Gregory had gone out and found a heifer in labour and put her in the shelter. He then went back to check on her and discovered that she had one black calf and one red one. We didn’t sleep much the rest of the night as we kept checking on them to make sure that both calves nursed and that the heifer didn’t pick one and leave the other. She turned out to be a good mother and was very happy to have a black heifer and a red bull calf. We did laugh a bit when I went back to my calving records and found out that the heifer’s mother had twins on April 1, 2020. They seem to have a family tradition started.
We had our last calf April 9. We were quite happy to be done with calving season. We lost two calves and had one set of twins. It wasn’t what we were hoping for, but between the cold weather and the big calves it could have been far worse.
On the evening of April 15, Gregory took Joseph skating on the shallow slough in the back bin yard. Its only the third time that Joseph has been skating. John strapped on his skates as well for a short time. There were three generations of skaters on the same puddle, as Gregory affectionately called it.
The evening of April 16 we had our first foal. We were getting ready for the Holy Saturday service when I went out to quickly check the mares. I found a brand-new bay colt. The mare was quite played out from having the big boy. With Gregory’s help we were able to get her to her feet and the colt vigorously went to work trying to find the udder. Everything looked good so we rushed home to get dressed and then drove to Wilkie to the Catholic church. We made it just in time.
We got home late that night. It was supposed to be a cool night so we put a foal blanket on the new colt. He was very lively and Gregory had to hold him while I strapped the blanket into place. By the next afternoon, the colt was not very lively at all. He went from being a little weak, to being colicky, to being unable to stand. We tried to doctor him, but while he did seem to recover for a short period of time, he quickly went downhill.
I went out to check on him and give him more medicine at 3:00 am April 19. He was out flat and was labouring to breathe. There was no more that I could do for him, so I said my goodbyes and headed home. I decided to check the pregnant mares in the back corral before heading home and I was very happy that I did. A mare had a very fresh filly. She was a few days early and the mare had showed no signs that she was about to foal. I quickly went and got Gregory and together we were able to get the mare and filly into the shed where they would be out of the weather and away from all the other curious mommas.
Try as we might we were not able to save the first colt. We grieved our loss and then rejoiced in the new life. We have nine more mares to foal. Hopefully, all goes well and they are all healthy.
