The video documents a family farm’s experience with a first‑time heifer, Harriet, giving birth on the coldest day of the year. The narrator outlines three primary challenges: Harriet’s inexperience as a heifer, the sub‑zero temperatures, and the fact that she has never been trained to use a stall. The birthing process is described in detail, emphasizing the importance of deep, warm bedding (a mix of manure, hay, and wood chips) and the need to monitor the calf’s progress every 30 minutes. After the calf is born, the family focuses on preventing hypothermia by blocking wind, drying the calf, and ensuring the newborn receives colostrum within the critical 1‑2 hour window. The mother’s licking behavior is highlighted as essential for circulation. The video then shifts to the logistical challenge of milking Harriet for the first time, discussing milk fever concerns, how much milk to collect, and the technique of milking a first‑time heifer. Interspersed throughout are casual family moments—sledding, snowboarding, checking snowy roads, and visiting a community barn—illustrating the farm’s daily rhythm amidst harsh weather. The overall narrative conveys a supportive, hands‑on approach to animal husbandry under extreme conditions, balancing careful animal care with family leisure activities.
Chapters
Our heifer calf is giving birth for the first time, but there are 3 things that may complicate this. 1, she's a heifer, it's her first time. 2, it is the absolute coldest day of the year, it's going to be in single digits at night. And 3, we were never really able to train her. Oh, she's up, she's having her freaking baby. There we go, stay in here, you're on deep bedding. Nobody's gonna step on your baby in here. The beautiful one's saying, should we put her in a stall? I mean, she'd have the shelter of a stall, but she's never been in a stall, so I don't— I think she'd be uncomfortable. Look, they're more than capable of doing this. Hoops are what's supposed to be coming first, correct? This bedding is amazing. I've just got my knees down in here and it's super warm. You don't want to move her off of here. She won't be born. The bedding won't be warm in the stall. She's getting further every time. We want to watch her, and she needs to— we take note of where she is in progress of pushing it out, and it needs to progress at least every 30 minutes. Show her a video. Poor thing. Take a picture and show her. No, she don't know. She just knows something's happening. They just want to grab the feet and pull them out. It just doesn't work like that. You do have to pull down, but it's not just like you pull either. It doesn't, it doesn't just come out even with us pulling. You definitely don't want to do that unless you have to. She's doing really good, especially for her first time. Here comes the nose. You can see it twitching, moving every once in a while. That's its lips. You can see its tongue hanging out the side. Now if she gets the head over the head, it's smooth sailing. Y'all can all see the nostrils now. I wish you guys could feel how warm this bedding is. It's so snug and cozy. It's, it's as if it's a heating blanket out here. It's that manure and hay and wood chips mixing together. It's slowly composting. Okay, she was getting further along. Look, look, there it comes! Oh, we're so close, so close! One more push. This is her first. Yeah. Oh, it's blinking. She knows exactly what to do. When she realized it was a calf, that was a funny reaction. Her eyes got wide. Oh, she's done! Let her do her thing. She needs that nutrients there. This is bonding. Yay! We're gonna block the wind, thinking we might help dry this calf off because it's so cold. The, um, calf's shivering. That's gonna be normal. It is so cold. The, the mama licking the calf though helps circulate the blood. And so we don't intervene too much so the mama doesn't do that. Let's— licking it everywhere. She's licking it down the legs, she's looking at it on the head. Now is going to be the tricky part of making sure this calf gets colostrum. It needs to happen within 1 to 2 hours of birth. We've got Harriet in this corner. And it's been about an hour. You've got an hour or two before it needs to get colostrum. It's just gonna move out of the way. Harriet seems like she's a good mom, with her being a heifer, first-time mom, and Uh, it being so cold, I'm just gonna make sure this happens. Maybe if I can get Harriet eat— drinking alfalfa, alfalfa— I can then help the calf get on. I might try. I might try. We got her in the stanchion. More alfalfa coming. Do you need me in there? Maybe. Just one second. Yes, come on. I think I got a little bit in its mouth. I feel like that calf wants it to be her idea, and Harriet wants it to be her idea. So I think what we're gonna do— I've dried the calf off. I did squirt a good bit of colostrum in the calf's mouth, so it's got some. I wouldn't intervene this much if it weren't so cold and if it weren't Harriet's first time. So I think leaving it alone would probably be better than anything. Taking a nap together. Let's see. Okay, the calf is no longer shivering. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I ended up just spraying some colostrum in this calf's mouth. They're so vigorous. I think it needs to be both of their ideas, and I think it's going to be okay now that just I've got a little bit in the calf. But now we've got to go into the most cold night of the year, so we're going to hope that's enough and that they get each other. See how she's doing. Okay, all right, the calf is moving. There is no way that calf isn't nursing because it is 8:15. That would have been 12 plus 6, 18 hours this baby has been alive. The coldest day of the year yesterday, that's when they're born. Granted, that was their due date. I'm going cash crazy. Onions Sweet potatoes. It's ready. Going a lot faster this time. I'd like to hurry up to go see. I really want to go see how that calf's doing. I'm kind of anxious about— well, I'm really anxious about milking Harriet for the very first time. She's gonna be a pain. Yeah, she said it's gonna be a pain. Just how much of a pain, we'll see. The first time ever milking. Wow, Mr. Brown, cleaning up nicely. This is one less time I'm going to be going out in sub-freezing temperatures. I think one less is a good mindset, even whether I want to try to cherish it or get it over with. I remember thinking when our babies wouldn't go to sleep, this baby will eventually go to sleep. So it was always one last night that that baby was not going to sleep through the night. Think of things in terms of one thing at a time. All right, since this is the last of our cold weather, there's about to be a huge break. It's gonna be high 30s today. I'm saying it's one less— it's one less cold day. That's a good thing, and I can do it. All right, close-up, close-up check-in on this calf. She looks cozy over there in that corner. You do all right? All right, we're coming to milk you. Wait, you turned my mountain board into a snowboard? Yeah, I don't think that works. I guess it works. Shall we go sledding and snowboarding after Harriet? Bro, you're just tearing her up. Now we've got to get her back in that stanchion. After doing it once yesterday, she's going to be on to us. After that, we fed her alfalfa by the machines and would leash her, and each time she just got more timid. So, all right, the plan: I'm gonna get alfalfa. She seems crazed for it. I'm gonna try to lead her in the stanchion. Jonah, if I can't I'm gonna take the calf over there. She'll come towards the calf. When she's ministering to the calf, I'll leash her up, wrap it around the stanchion, and pull her through. And you'll be out here, uh, shutting it. Sound good? Yeah. All right. No, no, heifers are great, Mama, and know what to do. We had to help Vanilla. We didn't have to help Harriet. Plus, she would kill you. Oh, I need the leash. She's on to us. I don't know if this will work, but it's sort of a minimal effort. No, that's worth a try. I'm gonna have to do a real corral leading her in the stanchion. Uh, could probably get her tied up now. Boys, I'll get in there. Wait. Okay, this is working. Why is she using— here, here, open this up. All right, let's get the, uh, come to the side. You know how we did this? This is nice. She'll get— oh, she'll get it. It's okay, taking our time. I forget how big of a struggle it is with their horns to get— yeah, they— there you go, there you go, honey, there you go. Good girl. Now you hold it up there at her head, okay? Hold her there. Hold her there. Good. She's a good mom. That's definitely some, uh, colostrum. It's true colostrum, barely filtering. Now I only took half because she's a female. We don't want milk fever. Uh, for some reason when it's a male you milk it all, and with the female you milk out half. You have to estimate, of course. Guesstimate. I squirted some more in the calf's mouth just in case. Enough intensity with the calf and mama. They're gonna be fine. Shall we go sledding? Yeah. Is it holding you? Hey, how are you guys so good at this? Oh, it's not that hard. Whoa, Jonah's trying it. Gonna go snowboarding soon. There you go. You guys have no problem. You're getting better than you were yesterday. Don't be afraid to lean forward. Whoa, don't get hit, Mom! He's laying back. That's the problem, Papa, is if you lean too far on the mountain board, it kicks you over. Yeah, you see, this is all you have to do to over here. All right. Oh, we did a trick! Yeah, yeah! Whoa! The fun has only just begun. Lily wants to go to the barn and check on her horse. We don't keep the horse on the property anymore. She likes the community aspect of the barn. Can we get out of our driveway? Let's check out the roads. I heard the roads are kind of snowy for 3 miles. That was of yesterday, so we'll see. 3 days since it started snowing and we haven't had a scrape scraper on this, our road, yet. This road hadn't even been scraped. It's a pretty popular road. This is usually pretty sketchy. It's downhill and it doesn't get much sun. These roads are worse than I thought they would be. A major roadway before the roads were cleared. Yeah, and the rest of the way is back roads, so the chances of That was going as fast the whole time. Very slim. Well, we made it without incident. How's Luna holding up in the cold weather? She's holding up good. She had some blanket. Fun little dessert. S'mores in front of the stove. This is where I want to be, just Warming up, been outside all day. Anyway, the calf made it, Becky. It's been over 24 hours. We're good. Josiah saw it nursing this morning. We're in 3 milk cows now. Happy day.
