“That everything is so right is really bizarre,” says Rens. The calver rain is the result of two parallel pregnancy groups in the yard. “We artificially inseminated a group of older cows, and around the same time the Pinken, the younger cows, are naturally covered by Douwe Bob,” says Rens.
“Normally a bull spreads that in a few weeks, but apparently he thought: I grab my chance. Everything in one week.” The result: almost all cows gave birth at the same time, a rarity on the small family business.
Capacity
That intensity brings challenges. “Normally the calves go to the mother for two days after birth, and then we keep an eye on them in special lofts,” explains Rens. “But it is now so exceptionally busy that I had to carpentate lofts myself. We also had too few drinking trays. So I had to feed a dozen for days. Fortunately I have made drinking bottles from old bins. It is helping, but it works.”
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The workload is therefore huge. “I have said to my wife many times: you are going to eat in advance, I will save myself.” Especially with the pinks, who gave birth for the first time, Rens wants to be there personally. “Those older cows have experience, and know what they are doing, but with the young people you stay awake. Fortunately, not many came at night, but still you are in the stable until twelve, and back at five o’clock, and that for a few weeks.”
Douwe Bob
For Stier Douwe Bob this was his last feat. “His last mating dance was really his last trick,” says Rens. “He came to our company as a young bull a few years ago. After a Facebook call to come up with a name, and because of the current events around the singer and his fertile escapades it soon became Douwe Bob.”
A potential successor is now running among all new -born calves. “A new bull has already been born. He can follow Douwe Bob. We are still looking for a name, we will do that again via Facebook. The last time we had as a runner-up ‘Fred for Leer’.”
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Rens dreams of keeping all male animals on the company in the future. “We are already experimenting with that. We castrate them to OS and see if we can keep them for the meat and their teachings, and whether this is profitable for our farm shop. That way we can give them a much better life than when they end up as veal.”
Maternity visit and name competition
A few cows are still expected to calves. Visitors to the farm shop can experience a birth from close by on Friday and Saturday between 10 am and 5 pm. Who wants to think along about the name of the newborn bull, can leave a suggestion via the Facebook page of Deliciousvandeboer.nl.