City Slickers - A season of birth

Story by Jennifer Cockrall-King and Terry Juzak
Photography by Dustin Delfs

Jennifer and Terry visit a local farm during calving season and witness the hard work, anxiety and wonder of this time of year.

We’re nervously joking about which one of us will be nominated for midwifery duties, how far we’ll have to trudge over hill and dale to find moms-to-be or little newborns or how our urban footwear will look and smell at day’s end. Driving toward Dapp, Alberta – a million cattle questions swirling around in our heads – we’re on assignment to visit a cow-calf operation during calving season. While it isn’t a particularly bitter day by January’s standards, one of the obvious questions for us is why cattle producers choose to have their calves during the coldest, darkest month of the year.

At 11 a.m. we arrive at Mike and Shirley Cook’s farmyard. They’ve raised horses, pigs and cows through the years, but now concentrate exclusively on raising beef cattle on their six quarters of land. They have about 120 breeding cows, 40 of which have already had their calves during the first part of January. Mike also serves as vice-chairman of the Beef Information Centre, the organization that represents the interests of over 90,000 beef producers in Canada.

“You two should have been here two days ago,” Mike says as he walks us toward ‘the maternity ward,’ a pen where moms and their newborns are milling about. To our delight it’s no more than 50 feet from his front door. “We had seven born that day.” Today? Who knows.

Our arrival seems to cause a bit of a ruckus. Maybe the cows can sense city slickers in their midst. We were immediately taken by the colour of the babies, a uniform designer-taupe, and their big, liquid eyes and eyelashes to-die-for. We lean over the fence hoping one will come close enough to get a pat. Like any tentative youngsters, the calves are curious about the two of us but keep their distance. Mike assures us that new mothers are quite protective and their mooing and milling suggests that our presence has them on red alert.

During calving season, Mike’s cows are kept close to the house in large fenced yards where they munch away contentedly on silage, lie around in straw beds and make frequent trips to the water trough. It’s a little different in southern Alberta on the grasslands of large sprawling ranches, where cows mainly calve out on the open range, necessitating frequent long-distance patrols on horseback or all-terrain vehicles to check on the herd, he explains. When asked what silage is, Mike fetches a handful of an alfalfa-grass mixture and we inhale the slightly fermented, but surprisingly floral grassy aroma.

Next, Mike takes us into the birthing shed, a small barn with stalls. When a cow is ready, Mike walks it into the shed where it can give birth and mother and calf can spend a day bonding. Inside, Mike also keeps an eye on the calf to make sure that it is nursing properly and that there are no problems. It’s also easier inside the shed to give the calves their shots and ear tags.

Nestled in a thick bed of fresh, sweet-smelling straw is a baby bull, born last night. Awe-struck but cautious around this nervous newborn, we slowly enter the pen so that Mike can check him over, provide him with the appropriate nutrients and tag him. The calf decides to make a break for the open stall gate, but we turn him around. In less than five minutes, the procedures are done and, though wobbly on his feet, Baby 169 is outside reunited with his mom.

It seems like a low-stress lifestyle and Mike admits he can pretty much manage things on his own. That said, about 80% of cow-calf operations have “off-farm income” and the Cooks are no different; today Shirley is working in nearby Westlock. At night, however, it’s a two-person job and Mike and Shirley spell each other off in three-hour intervals.  For some reason, most of the excitement does tend to happen during the wee hours. We realize this job is a 24/7 commitment – no weekends or holidays off.

Mike explains that most births on his farm don’t require intervention on his part. His Red Angus-Simmental cows are bred to Gelbvieh bulls, which produce slightly smaller calves that birth easier. He rarely has to “pull a calf,” meaning that he has to reach in and help the baby out. However, it does happen. He points out a calf he helped bring into the world a week ago. “That little girl over there … If I hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t be here. That’s a pretty neat feeling.”

Throughout the day and into the late afternoon, we chat, watch and wait. January is an otherwise slow month on the farm. Mike explains that this is one of the reasons he calves in January. But there are more important reasons, especially the fact that post-birth diseases are minimized at this time of year. Lastly, the majority of cattle producers calve in March and April, so he’s a bit ahead of the curve when it comes time for his cattle to go to market, fetching him a better price on average.