As financial pressures on UK beef farms increase, each beef industry stockman will be expected to look after more animals. Consequently, labour availability around calving will be reduced in future years. In order to enable limited human assistance to be targeted towards those cows and calves that need it, a sound understanding of the time course of the natural calving process is needed. The objective of this study was to detail the time dynamics of the major externally visible calving events in unassisted spring calving suckler cows housed in a straw bedded yard, typical of UK practice.