Last Thursday I watched a calf being born – in a stable, on 6 January – 2011 years after the three Wise Men came to the stable in Bethlehem to bestow gifts on the Baby Jesus.

On this occasion the stable was in Bavaria in the Allgäu on the farm where we were holidaying with our German grandchildren.

I’d just got back from an afternoon drive, when it was announced that a calf was about to be born and that we were welcome to go and watch. The step-son-in-law and I watched fascinated as a tethered cow nonchalantly gave birth standing up. First came the placenta, then the forelegs, followed by the head. Suddenly, with a bit of assistance from the farmer’s wife, out popped a 40 kilo male calf and dropped with a clunk onto the stable floor a metre below!

Frau Kuchenbäcker, who’d been doing most of the work, aided by her dad Herr Schmid, rubbed the calf’s heart, checked it over (no broken limbs despite the fall!) and then the two of them carried the heavy newborn to a stall and wrapped it in straw.

The calf will never see his mother again, for this is a dairy farm and they need her milk to sell. The calf will be bottle fed and then reared until it is old and big enough to be sold for slaughter. They have no use for males here!

As for the birth, it was a doddle compared to the two human ones I’ve attended!

© Paul Whitelock

Tags: three Wise Men, Allgäu, Bethlehem, Bavaria, Paul Whitelock, www.a1-solutions-spain.com