Islay's calf is male

Look how CUTE he is.

He has just woken up here.

He looks like a little bear cub

Pretty energetic for 2 days old - he has been prancing around for the few minutes a day he is not sleeping.

We (I) tied Islay to a tree so Doug could sneak off and apply fly repellant to him. He then tottered over with her running round the tree madly mooing like a crazed beast.

Off in the sun together

Bye bye losers we have had enough of you

With the rest of the herd (minus Bluebell and Myrtle who are up by the house because Bluebell was tricky with Lismore and we wanted her in a small field where she is easier to catch and milk - but she is being fine this time).

The people we bought Islay and Hainoa from (who also let us take them back to breed with Capi one of their bulls) rushed round to help and advise us today when we let them know that Islay had had the calf and that we had been having trouble getting close. They were worried that we wouldn't be able to get close enough to put fly repellent on which stops fly strike (maggots eat the animal alive which we know full well how HORRIBLE it is, as we have had it happen to the sheep) and they have some super concentrated stuff that they apply with a huge water pistol for when they cannot get close to the calf. Fortunately we had managed to apply some Butox close up earlier in the day.

However it was still great to see them, as they have confirmed that he will turn out dun in colour. This is his father Capi whose colour I think is called white (though really he looks creamy). I guess the calf will end up with similar-ish colour hair, perhaps a bit darker/greyer, but the skin underneath is black which you can tell from his grey nose.

They told us dun is a popular (because rare-ish) colour, so we have decided not to castrate and beef him, but rather to keep him entire and sell him when he is about 6-9 months old. This depends a little bit on how he comes out conformation wise, but as mom and dad are fine specimens we hope for good looks from him.

Also they think that Hainoa came into heat around the same time as Islay and that she didn't take on the same cycle, so it should perhaps be 3 weeks until she gives birth (or potentially 6 weeks though we are not sure that she would still have been with the bull then).