the cline's get cows {including a baby cow!}!

the *cow* is out of the bag!! we’re officially the proud parents of our sweet little cow family! internet friends, meet our newest additions to the farm! {this is baby cow at just 1 day old..the day they arrived at our farm!}f

baby cow details

zach has been wanting to add cows to our crew for years and this was the year i was bored enough to say yes 😉 . . . totally kidding. if you’ve been around here for any length of time you know this has been the craziest year of our lives {see also: my stroke, our decision to homeschool, getting COVID … and those are only the highlights 😉 BUT…why not?!

zach has worked his booty off to get our pen in working order so we jumped feet first with mama, baby + daddy! we’re learning as we go and of course in true cline fashion had some hurdles to jump over the first day or two. sweet baby cow had an eventful first 24 hours of life being transported to our homestead and had a bit of a transition learning to eat.

we supplemented baby cow with a bottle {checked that one off my bucket list!}, made sure everyone was well hydrated and if you caught my stories on instagram you even saw zach milking mama!

all is well, baby is eating and getting bigger by the day and we’re loving this cow life!

meet ezmerelda {mama – up top!} + daddy {yet to be named – below!}

despite our best efforts {there have been many} we’re still not sure if baby cow is a bull or a heifer but word on the street is that we simply need to watch baby pee and we’ll be able to figure it out! who knew identifying the gender of a cow could be so complicated!!

as soon as we do though… we’re throwing a gender reveal party 😉 because…why not.
YOLO.

the crew has been soaking up the farm life, learning all about chores and we’ve been catapulted into homeschooling lessons in the cow business.

annnnnd just because we’re all excited, we thought it would be fun to snap some ‘newborn’ pics with our favorite, ivory lamb photography. I know, I know, I know… only a city girl would put a flower crown on a calf…but here we are, it’s been the year from hell and I think we could all use a little baby cow cuteness!!

while our cows are adjusting, we’re taking it slow and making sure they get a lot of interaction so the kids will be able to do a lot of the ‘chores’. they’re still getting used to having the kids around {hello chaos} but the baby LOVES them!! the bull is still undecided and keeps his distance but is certainly interested in what’s going on.

the cow plan:

lots of questions about what we’re planning to do with these cows… the plan is to start breeding, adding to our livestock and yes, they will be used for meat. yes… I will likely cry the day my baby heads out. BUT. we know this is their purpose and we’re looking forward to learning the ropes. we have a butcher, so we will not be doing the processing…but we’re very open with the kids and they know that’s the plan! we will take wonderful care of them in the mean time… but there’s a lot of interesting conversations happening!!