Many moons ago, we had the bright idea to calve in mid-February to get our calves on the ground sooner and to have larger calves, in theory, by marketing time. The three years we tried this experiment, we experienced gigantic blizzards about two weeks into calving. This made for some interesting nights on the Arens farm.

CLEAN AND WARM: This newborn is not only enjoying dry surroundings, but also a clean nose. That is often not the norm during spring calving.

Unlike many of you today, we didn’t have a shed large enough to house all of the cows or even the close-up ones, so we guessed on which cows might be calving when bad weather struck. Back in those days, I could still carry a wet, wiggly calf weighing 90 pounds in my arms, about a quarter mile through knee deep snow and into the warmth of the barn without living on ibuprofen for my aching back for the next two weeks. And I did that many times. After so many of those kinds of struggles, we decided to play along with Mother Nature and we moved calving back to April.

I thought we were in good shape, with a little grass in the pasture and more temperate weather normally in the forecast in April. Of course, this is Nebraska, so I was wrong. When I was dating my wife, she was teaching first and second grade at St. Leonard’s Catholic School in Madison. That’s about an hour and fifteen minutes driving from our place now. That year, St. Leonard’s scheduled First Communion on the first Sunday in April and Donna wanted me to attend, since she taught those First Communicants. I agreed before I realized that a major spring blizzard was on its way for that very day.

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I got up early that morning in the dark and checked the cows for baby calves. The wind had started to blow about 40 m.p.h. and heavy, wet snow blanketed the ground. The air temperature was around 10 degrees, but the wind chill was far below zero. The cows were bedded down, but they huddled behind the windbreak in the pasture, shivering from the cold and rapid change in weather.

As I flashed my light around the yard, I noticed that there were baby calves that had been born in the past couple of hours. Not just one or two, but actually five calves had been born. I had my work cut out for me. So, I got all of the calves and their mothers lured into the barn and out of the weather. I won’t go into the details of how this was accomplished. Let’s just say that the cows were uncooperative and the calves all had to be carried in. I made sure they were all nursing and then I checked for more calves. Telling myself that there would be no more babies on this day, I went to the house to clean up and get ready for my trip to Madison. My Dad was on calf duty for the rest of the day.

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As I drove off the place, the wind continued to howl and the visibility was worsening in the early morning light. The closer I got to Madison, the worse the visibility became. I made it, but it took an extra hour to get there. The First Communion was beautiful and we attended several of the parties following the service, but everyone kept asking me how I made it to Madison in such bad weather.

I just told them it had been a long morning. When I got home, there were no more new calves for that day and all of the calves born early in the morning were doing fine. But it was a hectic, crazy time in early April, especially considering that I really thought by calving in April we were out of the woods for winter weather. What was I thinking?

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Bonus:  Will your calves perform well in the feedlot?