Thus far we’ve had five calves born here at the farm.  And boy howdy are they cute!  Full of verve and vigor, plenty of personality, more energy than we or their mothers can duplicate, and in general providing ample joy and laughs every day.

That’s Red Jr. less than two weeks old.  He was showing the paparazzi what he thought about the intrusion, but when I didn’t get the message, he turned up the volume.

I still didn’t get the message, but he didn’t seem to care anymore.

And if you’re wondering why he’s named Red Jr., well, here’s his mother, Red.

Hence the name.

We also have this little guy.

Nope, we haven’t named him yet.  I probably will even though I shouldn’t.

His mother is likewise nameless, though she certainly has personality.

Or at least curiosity.  Which is cool by me.

And this is Braue.

The name should be obvious (from German).

We’re not sure of Braue’s gender yet.  Not that it’s an emergency.  Besides, we’ll figure it out soon enough.

As for his mother, her name is Whiteface, and she’s the reason the pasture isn’t safe for strangers.

In fact, Whiteface makes the pasture unsafe for my uncle who lives here.  She got her bad personality from her mother who was also dangerous.

But that personality serves her well when she has a calf.  Trust me, you don’t want to mess with her or her calf if you value your life.  I can get close because I’m in the pasture many times each day and I’m the adopted Mr. Mom for one of the calves.  This has made me an honorary member of the herd.  Anyone else venturing into their territory is taking a big risk if Whiteface is around.

This is Sis.

She’s Bini’s twin sister.  Yes, a sister.  That photo was taken while she sampled a dead leaf, something she quickly discarded once she decided it wasn’t tasty.

That’s Sis feeding from her and Bini’s mother, Mom.  (Yes, we named her Mom because she’s a good mother.)  Unfortunately, having twins seemed to throw Mom’s body for a loop.  She wasn’t able to produce enough milk for even one calf (we’d already taken Bini away to raise him by hand).  Eventually we had to take Sis away from her and start feeding her by bottle.

The separation went well, albeit somewhat traumatic for both mother and calf.  But they’ve both adapted.  Sis has been held in the corral for almost two weeks while she acclimates to her new mother, my aunt.  Once she’s ready, we’ll move her back to the pasture with the herd and other calves.

Which brings us to the fifth calf, Bini.

That’s him sleeping with his head on my lap.  There’s no question from his perspective—or the rest of the herd for that matter—about who his Mr. Mom is.

Following abandonment by his mother, I carried Bini, the newborn calf, to a holding pen across the farm where we could manage his first few weeks.  He needed regular feedings, monitoring, interaction, and most importantly, he needed to bond with his adoptive mother—which would be me—the latter being paramount in order for him to rejoin the herd.

He enjoyed warm milk four times each day in increasing amounts, but food represented only a fraction of what he needed.  Like all kids, he required play, time to investigate the world, time to lounge away from his hay bed, affection, a sense of safety and belonging, and a plethora of simple needs his mother would usually provide.

Except his mother had abandoned him, rejected him in favor of her second calf, Bini’s twin.  So it fell on me to fulfill his early needs and desires, to be his Mr. Mom as it were.

Though we had four scheduled feedings, I also visited him many other times throughout each day to give him time outside the isolation pen where he slept (and that kept him safe both from the outside world and from potential harm or escape from the holding pen).  We played, we explored, we bonded.

Sometimes I would just sit on the ground and let him rest his head in my lap as he slept.  Sometimes I would stand back and let him meander about investigating the world.

And sometimes I would have him follow me around so I could force him to face challenges, obstacles like walking across uneven ground and meeting the horse and donkey through the fence.

I even had to teach him how to pee and poop.  Human children do these things automatically, but many mammalian young need guidance the first time, help getting the plumbing going if you will.

As children will be children, however, a great deal of our time was spent in play.  Great gamboling gobs of play.

Whether after feeding or play or just spending time together, he eventually would return to his hay bed in the isolation pen, sometimes willingly and sometimes by me carrying him (a progressively difficult task).

Despite feeling heartbroken at the begging sound of his young bellowing voice as I walked away, I knew I’d return.  And so did he.

In the end, we had bonded solidly and I had become his Mr. Mom, trusted entirely, sought after for food as much as for folly and welfare, loved by a young calf less than two weeks old.

Thus we came to Bini’s most daunting challenge to date—relocation to the main pasture and reintroduction to the herd, including his estranged mother and sibling.

Ten days following his birth and after ten days of me bonding with him, I felt he was ready for Bini’s big adventure.

We first saw him standing in the pasture, no more than ten minutes old.

But he was not alone.  On the contrary, the herd had moved in to protect the little one, guards in vigilant service to protect the least among them.

Yet we wondered where his mother was.  As each heifer approached the calf, they would sniff each other, and the youngster would try feeding from them.  And in response, each gently pushed him away while remaining nearby to protect him.

It didn’t take long to find the little guy’s mother.  She’d had twins and had moved some distance away with the second calf.

Cows aren’t very bright in the scheme of things, thus when one gives birth to more than one calf, they often don’t realize the firstborn is also their offspring.  Instead they bond with the last calf born, leaving the first to fend for itself.

So in the end, the young bull was abandoned by his mother, left alone in the big bad world, rejected only because he came first and she didn’t realize he was as much her child as the second twin she so carefully groomed and fed and protected.

There he lay, finally giving up on food and affection from the other cows, finally giving up on finding his mother, finally giving up.

What to do then?

Well, quite obviously we needed to take on the role his mother declined.  Hence I adopted him, became his Mr. Mom, and I’ve been tending to him since.

Today he’s five days old, and boy howdy is he full of personality and energy.

Oh.  I named him Bini.  It’s Latin and means “two at a time.”

[more of Bini’s adventures and progress in coming posts]