Hello,

We ended the month of May with a sweet note of welcoming Vennila, our new baby calf ❤️🌝

Vennila’s arrival was a pleasant surprise to everyone at the farm, including her caretaker Prema akka. We knew that her mother, Gowri, was pregnant but we had no clue that she was about to deliver. The morning started as usual, with opening chicken and ducks from their enclosure at 6 am. Sudhakar then went about his usual morning duties of filling water tank, irrigation followed by morning cuppa and fruits. The ladies came at 9 am – delegated work and just when we were having our breakfast Arokyam akka excitedly told us that Gowri has delivered. We were shocked and surprised. We immediately left our breakfast plates and went running to the cow shed. It seemed like she had just given birth as she was licking the calf and the little one had still not stood up. 

Interestingly, Gowri is still nursing her older calf Kabir and we are trying hard to wean him off so that Vennila can get all the goodness of colostrum. Gowri is being given sesame meal, coconut meal and rice bran for the first few weeks to make up for the lost energy. 

Three more cows are also nearing the end of their pregnancy and you’ll soon hear new addition stories in the coming months 🙂 

When we had introduced hybrid cows, we were growing napier grass for them as supplementary feed to free range grazing. Our native cows get their stomachs full with just grazing in our farm land for 5 hours. So, Sanmugasundaram has uprooted this grass from a few raised beds to make space for other crops such as black gram and tapioca.

The month of May has been a month if harvests :

• We harvested some black gram for home consumption and sesame for producing oil from a small plot.
• We harvested coconuts and sold it to retail shops. The coconut husks were used as mulch for our trees.
• We harvested sugarcane to supply to a sugarcane juice shop.
• Unfortunately, the palm jaggery season has come to an end quickly this year – in the month of May instead of July. 😢 But, honey production has picked up because most flowering happens in the summer and the sweetener of choice has been replaced on time. 😀 Please visit our online store to order 🙂

http://www.vivasayees.life

Regards,

Noushadya