Unexpected Results

One of our cows was expecting and Harland brought her up to stay in the lot beside the barn.  She can get out of the rain at the back of the barn.  So today we had the most unusual thing to happen.  He went out to check on her this morning and sure enough she had a little heifer calf.  But, she was born with NO TAIL.  None, nada, nothing!  Not even a nub.  She looks perfectly normal and adorable, but bless her heart nothing to swat a fly with.


I think I may have found the answer to why, with a little internet research.  Here is my simplified explanation, because while interesting, this genetic stuff is complicated to me.......It seems if you breed a black bull with a blonde (yellow) cow and both carry a recessive gene (called a diluter gene) and the resulting calf is black it can be born tailless  If the mother carries two copies of the recessive gene it would be the result (for a black calf) for every birth, if one copy the result is a 50/50 chance.  Our cow Butter has been around for many years.  She typically has a yellow calf, but we know she has had black calves with tail in previous years.  So she must just carry one copy of this gene.  This can happen with red or blonde (yellow), but I understand only if the bull is black.  Typically Black Angus crossed with another breed.



Alice our pet rabbit had kits this weekend and I forgot to mention this in my previous post.  It was cold and I didn't want to disturb them.  But today it was a little warmer, so I checked on them.  She had 5 kits.  Last year she had eight.  All seem to be doing okay.  I will have to wait to get pictures of them until they start moving around a little and get some hair.

This is the new mom, Alice

This is dad, his name is Buck

Harland got the floor in the hay shed today.  He said he needed to put the gates at the end of the trough.  Then he is also waiting on panels, but that may be next week before we get them.  But hopefully we will be finished once the panels are up.

JoCasta called this morning and said Charlotte and Bella are coming to hang out with us tomorrow while Wayne goes to file their taxes.  So we are looking forward to spending some time with them here at the farm.  I'm sure they will want to see all the new babies.  Speaking of taxes (believe me I don't want to) I am working getting our stuff together this week.  I may miss some posts this week!

I love this picture of all my granddaughters.  Isn't it adorable!  It was taken in March when we were all visiting in Virginia for Wren's birthday party.  Notice Charlotte has her pretend cell phone in her back pocket!