Calf Watch 2025

Still Waiting on May Belle

We’ve been waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Our pregnant dairy cow, May Belle, is taking her sweet, sweet time bringing her baby into the world. We’ve been watching her like nervous grandparents pacing a hospital waiting room—except instead of sterile hallways and vending-machine coffee, we’ve got mud, hay, and an ever-growing sense of cow-related suspense. When will it happen? Will it be a sweet little heifer or a sturdy little bull calf? The poor girl is as big as a house - it's got to be any day now!

The trouble is, we don’t actually know when she’s due. The people we got her from said something vague like, “Oh, sometime in October… or maybe closer to November.” Super helpful, right? Well, it’s now a full week into November, and still no calf. No baby moo. Just us, standing around analyzing May Belle's butt like it's a crystal ball.

The False Alarms

Every day we look for telltale signs. Has her udder bagged up? Nope. Any goo coming out of her hoo-ha? Nope. Tail lifting? Pacing? Pawing? Nothing.

Yesterday, though, she threw us a curveball. She spent the entire day laying down—which is

When are you going to pop that calf out, May Belle?!

not her normal M.O. Usually, she’s up and greeting us like an oversized golden retriever. But yesterday? Nothing. She just lay there like a beached whale with horns, chewing her cud and staring off into the distance. We crouched next to her, petting her, whispering encouragement like we were her midwives. Every once in a while, she’d sort of bear down, just a little, and we thought, okay, things are happening!

We were sure those were early contractions and that things were finally starting to move along. We were ready to grab towels and hot water like an old-timey western birth scene. And even though it's getting down into the 20's now, we left the bedroom window cracked open all night so we could hear her mooing or sounds of distress if she went into labor. Nothing.

And then this morning? She’s up, bright-eyed, and munching hay like nothing ever happened.

The Emotional Roller Coaster of It All

Let me tell you, waiting for a cow to calve when you don’t know her due date is a special kind of psychological torture. Every shift in her posture feels like a clue. Every tail swish sends us spiraling. We’re living in a constant state of “Is this it?” followed immediately by “Nope, false alarm.”

At this point, I think May Belle enjoys it. She’s out there smirking in the pasture like, Dance, humans. Dance for my amusement.

Patience Is a Virtue

So we wait. We check her lady bits like it’s our new hobby. We over-analyze every moo. We second-guess every nap. And we try—TRY—to be patient.

Because one of these mornings, we’ll wander out to feed her and there will be a wobbly little calf standing beside her. All of this waiting, guessing, and obsessing will melt away in an instant.

Until then… we’ll be hovering over our very pregnant cow, obsessively inspecting her vulva, and muttering “any day now” for the fifteenth day in a row.