Insight: Sunflower and the bull calf

Kim Baldwin, McPherson County farmer and rancher

Our fall calving season has just wrapped up with another successful year that has now brought views of lively baby calves dotting our pasture.

Since our calving season usually falls within the same time as the start of our fall harvest, it is my responsibility to keep watch of the cattle in the pasture while my husband and father-in-law focus on harvest.

It’s a task I have enjoyed ever since I was a kid when I’d keep watch on my cows and anticipate the arrival of little ones. I remember the excitement of riding the bus home from school to see a new wobbly calf in the pasture or the pride I had when a friend and I would sit behind the fence and be able to quietly watch a live birth.

I still have that feeling of anticipation to this day when I go out into the pasture in the mornings to see if there’s new life. I also have that sense of pride as my son and I go out into the pasture and sit atop a hill looking over the cattle during our evening check knowing what I experienced and observed as a child is being passed down to my children.

I always hope for an uneventful calving season with mother cows not needing my assistance. Some years are better than others. This year none of the cows required my assistance, but it was definitely an eventful season, nonetheless.

My son’s first bottle calf, Sunflower, has become a great cow and has proven to be an excellent mother over the last three seasons of calving. This year, my son and I discovered Sunflower and her new handsome red bull calf while checking the cattle one evening.

She had already cleaned up that little bull calf and he had figured out how to walk without wobbling and was nursing by the time my son and I found them. As we sat and watched the pair for a while, we commented on how this cow was a phenomenal mama even though she had been an orphan.

The next morning I went out again to check cattle but couldn't find that little red bull calf anywhere. Instead, Sunflower was nursing another calf — a petite black heifer.

I was a bit perplexed and amazed at the same time that Sunflower would allow a different calf to nurse, but I chalked it up to her being such a good mother. I also told myself that she had hid her red bull calf so well hidden in the tall grass that I couldn’t find him, but I was sure I’d see him during my evening check.

But my son and I couldn’t find that little red calf during our evening check. And Sunflower still had that little black heifer right beside her. I began to realize what was happening. Sunflower had twins. Scenarios ran through my mind. Perhaps she had only claimed the little heifer. Perhaps she hid the red bull calf and forgot where she’d left him. Perhaps coyotes had found him. In any of those scenarios, the outcome for that little bull calf was not promising.

The next morning my son and I awoke early to again go to the pasture and try to find that little red bull calf with no luck. I took the kids to school and returned to the pasture with our dog in the hopes we could find that baby.

The dog and I walked those 60 acres consisting of tall grass, thick timber and a creek bed. The dog sniffed out the little black heifer who’d been tucked into a tuft of grass, but we couldn’t find the red bull calf.

Two days later there was still no sign of that little guy. Four days later and I’d given up hope.

Six days later, my husband and son went out during the evening check. I received a text from my husband telling me they’d found the missing red bull calf. I quickly called to see where they’d found him and to find out how badly decomposed he was.

“Oh, he’s alive,” my husband giggled. I couldn’t believe it! When I got home later that evening I went out into the pasture to discover Sunflower with her two strong and healthy calves nursing.

That old cow surely gave us all a story to remember for a very long time and proof, once again, that she is an excellent mother.

"Insight" is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state's largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.