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| An example of a calf. |
So a trip to the calf store was needed. A couple of phone calls and an email or two and Keith was on his way to northern Illinois. There we found Krista Lidell and her organic dairy and some gorgeous Holstein calves. They were healthy and happy where they were, but still Keith convinced them to "go south" for the winter. Three hours later he and the new group were settled in on the balmy acres of South Pork Ranch. Everyone knows Central Illinois is much warmer than Northern Illinois. Sometimes by as much as 3 degrees.
Caring for 10 calves instead of 4 is not all that different. Except for 6 additional bottles, and enough additional straw for six hutches, and we needed 6 new collars as ours were pretty torn up and then a few more hooks to connect the collars to the 6 new lengths of chains to attach the 6 new calves to their hutches. And then 6 new pages of calf records to record where these little critters came from and how old they were and of course MORE PAPERWORK to prove they were indeed organic and Keith just didn't pick them up at Big R's Mid Winter Parking Lot Sale. And oh yeah, since they were all bull calves that meant 6 castration dates. (And you thought blind dates were bad.) What did I forget ? Yes ! 6 ear tags to be inserted so all calves could be tracked through our massive farm.
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| Example of more than one calf |
