Penny's Birth Blog (Finally)

Penny was due in January.
I've spent many hours over the last two weeks down at the barn overnight, in case the calf showed up. The reasons behind my expectations were the show of mucous that she started having in late January and her unbearably tight udder (unbearable for me, but apparently fine for her.)
Becky, who owns the cow and calf, wanted to whisk him away from Penny immediately, before she could lick him, but she was too fast for us! Dan and I didn't have the heart to take him from her after the licking, but Becky did, so he never nursed from Mom, just from the bottle.
We'd been keeping Penny in her stall at night for warmth and easy finding, and letting her graze in the west field all day.
When we got home from church today and she wasn't out in the field, I grabbed the towels from her barn and ran to the woods.
Here is what we found...
I like the second picture of Becky's midwifery because of the trust and friendship that you can see exists between them.
I'd estimate 15 minutes between the first and last pictures.
When I had found her, the tips of his hooves were visible, so a total of about a half hour from my first glimpse of hooves.

He weighed 60 pounds. If she'd had a littler heifer, I think the time would have been much shorter.

In the last photo, Becky isn't pulling, just waiting to receive him.