Busy Times

Peanut is ready to go outside - however, we aren't completed with her area, so not quite yet :)

Girl Scout Cookie Sales starting up pretty quick. Silly Supper is tonight and should be a lot of fun (it always is). Imagine - eating spaghetti with a fork or a salad with no utensils :)

A hockey game on tap for today and Boy Scout meetings. We will be busy.

I did get another layout completed last night - older pictures, but the memories they evoke are wonderful. It is a two page spread, but only showing the first (left) page below

Whoo Hoo - Peanut is trying to jump !!

Izzy and her bow - a quick question for scrappers - what is the easiest way to put a bow on a sheep? Glue dots, of course LOL

Peanut continues to improve. It is so nice that she is. Often, animals who come in are found too late to do much for other than make them comfortable. Peanut and Izzy will be moving outside soon (yes, I am excited, though I know it is a week away) and I can clean up and out my basement!!

Peanut loves to sleep in front of the fireplace these days. The screen keeps her from getting too close. Izzy seems to have the hang of it - she never has touched the fireplace, however, calfy has some singed fur from getting close.

I am hoping to get some work on my swaps done today. I finished setting up recipes in publisher to print for Pixerframers Can't Resist Recipe swap. I even did some sketches to figure out matting, embellishments and all for recipe cards :)

Also on tap - re-figuring a photo mat for the Scrapbooking Swap. I made one mat and don't care for it at all! I have no idea how to make it better and have been trying to figure out why I volunteered to do a photo mat - I always find them extremely challenging. Oh yeah - that is why I picked a photo mat - they are so hard for me that the only way I will improve is to do - - - sometimes I wish my parents hadn't taught me that (NOT - so happy they did). Well - off to finish brunch for kids (eggs to go with freshly made coffee cake) and get mad at more photo mats ROFL.

Peanut is her name

It may be interesting if she becomes a 1500 pound cow named Peanut, but she received her name this morning. She drinks her bottles well and is growing. I don't have a new weight for her as Izzy (sheep) ate the cord to the Wii sensor bar last night, so we no longer have an available scale. Still no idea how she got ahold of the cord, but she did and even though we put the cord back together, the drop from up by tv onto bare concrete did in the sensor.

She is doing better

Calfy is becoming a pain. She no longer sleeps near as much as she did and is always looking for new things to suck on while wandering. She does still sleep a lot, not back to normal, but it is good she is becoming harder to keep content in her small area. It is only about 8x8, so she can't really run (hasn't tried yet either).

She is also mooing more now. All good signs and making me much more excited for the day she can go back out to the barn. Kids are working on designing a new heated "crate" for her and Izzy to live in once they go back outside.

Right now, she is not going to be able to stand up to the elements. My friend is helping me make her a larger blanket/coat that she will wear and Izzy will be getting one too. Calfy's favorite place to stand is still in front of the fire. The grate is there to be sure she doesn't get too close to the glass and singe her fur.

I think we have turned the corner

Calfy is still not where we would like a calf of her age to be (1 week and 1 day), but she now vigorously eats her bottles, three times a day, and lays down without falling 99% of the time now. She if finally figuring to bend her knees!!

She is starting to fill out, though is still extremely thin, but no longer as gant looking and wants to eat. Now if we can get her interested in hay and pellets (a pressed feed with grain and other nutrients).

The dogs, Brigetta here, have become more helpful now as calfy eats her entire bottle, but they lick her chin for her (as well as any drops off the ground). She seems to enjoy their licking after her bottle and it sure calms her down quicker than anything else we have tried, as she now wants more when her bottle is completely gone. She is being slowly bumped up on feed, but we do not want her to get scours (calf diareha) so she has one more day before she gets another increase in milk.

Calfy still improving

She is very slow with improvement, but she gets up and down without assistance much better now than ever before. She is finally figuring out to bend her knees rather than try to sit with her back end first like a dog.

Calfy drinks her bottles on her own, though not quite right yet. It still takes about 20 minutes for her to drink a quart, though she no longer makes near the mess she was making when drinking on her own. We haven't gotten her to take more than 2.5 quarts in a day yet, but hopefully, soon, she will grown enough so we can get her up to 4 quarts a day. She is still right around 60 pounds, so at 2.5 quarts - she is drinking right around 5 lbs of nourishment a day - on the low end of recommended, but within the 4.8-6 lbs per day recommended at her age/weight.

So far, no interest in hay or other feeds, but they are still offered. It will be good for her when she figures out her water bucket, feed, and hay.

Continued progress

She drank her entire bottle by herself this morning!! Took 1/2 hour, but she did it on her own :) :) :)

Then she laid back down (by herself without falling - that is another improvement) and looks as if she will now nap for a while.

She has her days and nights a bit mixed up (or maybe this is normal). She thinks 1-5 a.m. are the times she should be awake and moving (if she was with her own mom, I wouldn't care nearly as much)! However, hopefully we will continue to see improvement. Once she is on a bottle - fully on her own, and able to maintain her body temperature without assistance, we can move her outside (she will still have to wear a blanket and remain in heated enclosure, but out of my house would be good) :).

A little better

Calfy drank her entire quart on her own!! She is still a pretty messy eater - she doesn't hold her tongue quite straight yet, but it is getting better. Hopefully, she will get the hang of eating on her own soon and then she can be a bottle baby that the kids can help feed.

DD does a wonderful job of petting/massaging the baby calf to encourage her eating and rubbing her the right way encourages the calf to do her business as well.

Below is a picture of Izzy sleeping with the calf. Calfy likes the other animals with her or lying down next to the stove - the noise helps her relax better than any tv channel we get. (actually, everyone is pretty tired of the tv being on these days).

Calfy is still going

She didn't want to nurse much this morning, so we had to tube her again. However, between 2 and 5 am, she was very active and walking around, so hopefully she will feel more active later on today and feel like nursing.

She is asleep again - she notices slight temperature changes, so we have an additional blanket for her this morning. It was -14 when I was outside, so the basement is a bit colder than normal.

Well - her is hoping that she soon feels like walking around and acting like other baby calves soon.

A big hurdle passed?

Calfy drank her entire 9:30 pm feeding on her own!!! That brings her total up to an entire bottle into her today - 1/3 of which was completely on her own :) :) :)

Let's hope this continues with her next feeding as well. Less time for scrapping this evening - she wants to be up and walking - which is good, but means we have to keep a pretty close eye on things (there is one portion that is on raw concrete/off her cow mat that is slippery for her to walk on).

She is still wearing her Udder Tech blanket :)

Calfy is still going

She needs to be watched (basically because she is indoors). She is more stable when she walks and is doing her "duties" with regularity. She has been trying to figure out nursing/sucking, but hasn't returned to full understanding.

She sleeps about 18-20 hours per day, approximately 2 hours at a time. This past time, she got up, did her thing, then wanted to suck on anything nearby. I worked with her for about 20 minutes with two different bottle nipples, but she only took in 2 ounces. So, it was a feeding tube again. Hopefully, by continually working every time she gets up, we can get her to either nurse from a bottle, or even just slurp everything up out of a bucket.

Though she is inside, she still needs a blanket when sleeping - otherwise she starts to get cold and shiver. So, we keep going, one day at a time.

The Wii fit that was a Christmas gift has been coming in handy to help us track her weight. (however, she is listed as a little dog on the screen :))

On a good/positive note - I have had more time to work on swaps. I have a few completed. If you do scrapbook swaps over at scrapbookingfun.biz, and want to be surprised, don't scroll any further :). The images are not exact - the one for the Christmas Past is my copy - I didn't like the glimmer mist on the edges, or the background being that large and distressed, so the actual ones coming out are a bit different (and have one more piece). The others are from the Love Bandit Swap and it is just a sample set of pages. They all vary just a bit.

Just keep going

Not sure - calf keeps getting up and walking around. She does her business but will not nurse. We had to use a feeding tube again - I don't like using, but if she won't eat with another method - not sure what else to try. She doesn't want to slurp out of a bucket either.

She looks a smidge better this morning, so we will see.

Current weight: 61 pounds (our calves usually weigh between 90 and 110 when they are born)