Taking the downs with the ups (It's not all violins and sunsets)

Gordon is nearly three weeks old and Ambrose was born exactly a week later. Both of them are doing well and are now off all of their supplements except a half teaspoon of Dolomite in their feeders once a day. They are fed twice a day from their calf feeders at the same time as I'm milking the cows, Daisy and Lavender.  After milking, I tip fresh milk into their feeders, hang them on the edge of the dairy fence and they know to come up and drink. This is when I'm washing the milking machine and mixing up feeds for the next round of milking.
Gordon developed a slight runny gut last week so, ever on the lookout, I watered down his milk ration with half milk half water to make up the two litres that they drink twice a day. Into that I added garlic water, yogurt and dolomite powder. Within two days his poos were back to normal.

I got tired of waiting for the boys to get brave enough to try drinking from Daisy so I'm taking matters into my own hands. Afraid that Ambrose would forget what it's like to drink directly from an udder, I've been supervising him to drink from Daisy while she's in the dairy and before I put the milking cups on her.
I've been watching the little boys closely, hoping I'll see one or both of them suckling from Daisy when they are all out in the paddock together. I can see that Gordon has become tired of being shoved away whilst trying to suckle from either of the two cows. His confidence has been eroded completely and he still associates me as the safest form of mother. He has a quiet and placid nature, not willing to continue trying to sneak his way in to Daisy's udder for fear of being pushed away again.
However, Ambrose has a more forceful and determined nature, so I'm quietly confident that he will eventually learn to suckle from Daisy unaided.

Paisley is a picture of health, much loved and cossetted by her mother.

Last week was a stressful one as Daisy developed mastitis.  After every calving she has such a massive udder which requires much attention on our part. We need to milk her 18 - 24 hours after calving, to take some pressure off, and then continue to milk her twice a day until the calf (or calves) are taking enough milk to keep her comfortable.
One quarter was feeling hot and was engorged. I milked her three times a day, and then one evening I noticed lumps in the straining cloth while bottling off her milk.
So that night I milked her every three hours through the night, massaging her udder at the same time to loosen up the lumps and get the flow going.
We gave her a needle of 15mls of Vitamin C into her rump, for two evenings.  This is our natural anti-biotic that we use instead of anti-biotics. and it has worked for us both times we have had the misfortune to have mastitis in the twelve years of owning cows.
All of this information has come to us via Pat Coleby's wonderful book, "Natural Cattle Care" that I mentioned in a recent post.
There has been lack of sleep here and plenty of worrying hours, so now that the danger has passed I'm even more grateful for healthy animals.
The need to move onto the next tasks at hand is ever present, lots has been happening, but where to find the few minutes to write about it? It will be my constant conundrum for a little while to come, so apologies for the brevity.
Thanks for dropping by to the blog and I hope you are finding some time to breathe. Take a breath for me will you?