A.W.O.L.

The milk cow we have had for years, the matriarch if you will, had her calf on Friday the 15th, in the mid-afternoon. This was unusual because she has always caved on a holiday of some sort. I was really expecting the calf on Veteran's Day. And as it turns out the calf was a little over-cooked--it really should have been born a few days before--right about Veteran's Day. It is a bull calf and we decided to call it A.W.O.L. because it didn't "report for duty" on time. And he had to be retrieved, he wasn't coming on his own. He was a bit big with a big head and his front feet were not in the right position. He got stuck and we had to pull him. It wasn't easy, between the cow and Ron both giving everything they had, that calf still almost didn't make it out. It was taking so long we both thought the calf was probably dead. Ron is not a little guy. We only managed to get one foot forward of the nose so the rope was only on that one leg, and he was using all his weight and strength pulling. I wouldn't have made a dent, I am half his size and am still coming back from a few years of malnutrition. Ron was pulling so hard I thought he was going to pull the calf's leg off, but at this point we didn't have hope for the calf. And then the little guy, with just his head and one foot sticking out, opened up his eyes and looked right at me. So the calf was still alive but still stuck and now we were afraid of killing it but the cow was the primary concern. I really do not know how to explain all this well, a stuck calf is something that kind of needs to be experienced first hand to really understand, it goes beyond just the standard "cow needs a little help so we gotta pull the calf." This guy was *stuck.* Sometimes when it is this bad, in order to try to save the cow, someone goes in and cuts the calf up to take it out in pieces. Either that or the cow will most certainly be lost. But that did not prove to be necessary. And since I already told you we named it I am sure you deduced that calf is still alive. He was a bit slow coming to his feet but that was a very traumatic birth soo…

But now the cow. Even once the calf is out, the trauma of the birth is still an issue for the cow. A pinched nerve during birth is common anytime a calf needs pulled, let alone one this stuck; heck every once in a while it happens on an normal birth. The pinched nerve issue will put a cow down because she can't feel one or both back legs. If they stay down, they will get worse because their own weight will start shutting off blood flow to the legs and you loose them. If you can keep them up, sometimes the feeling returns and everything is fine. Getting an animal that weighs roughly 1000 lbs. from a laying to a standing position is not really something that a person can do without the help of machines. And sometimes it injures the cow.

But Lily, though unsteady, stayed on her feet after the birth. Heck, she is a tough Irish gal. Everything seemed fine until Saturday midday when she was laying down more and not getting up easy when coaxed. Then a few hours later she lay down by the fence next to the creek bed and after getting a little time to rest was coaxed to get up, she tried and couldn't. This is a problem. A bit later her rump started to slide under the fence. Ron started calling around for help, we had to get her out from under the fence and we had to get her up. While this was going on she managed to get herself out from under the fence. What a good girl she is. She was in stage 2 of milk fever, we should have noticed the signs in stage 1, she drug it out longer than that stage usually lasts, she was dragging out stage 2 pretty long too, thankfully. By the time a cow hits stage 3 the chance of saving them drops significantly. Ron found someone with the stuff we needed but it was most of the way to town to go get the stuff, treatment for milk fever and these things called hip huggers that are used with a tractor to lift a down cow. We also had a neighbor at ready with a tractor to use. But since lifting an animal that size often does damage in itself the best thing to do is give the med for milk fever and hope they get up on their own. We were ready to cut the fence but we couldn't let her slide down the slope into the creek. She made that unnecessary; she never was good at respecting fences anyway. It did take two doses of the med but about 45 -50 min. after the first dose she could be coaxed up. She looked around for just a moment and didn't see her calf so she headed right to the calf pen, which she knew had to be where he was if she couldn't see him, unsteady but with purpose she made her way there. Of course he was there, she knows that where the calves are put for safety at night, and by this time it was night. She started nosing the hay and started eating. A bit later when Ron went out he gave her some grain in the calf pen but she followed him out, took a big drink of water and walked right into the milking stall -- where she believes she should eat.

Today she is a little off her feed but is standing. We will give her another dose of the treatment today if Ron can find a place on Sunday that sells it. If not I guess a another special trip to town tomorrow and we will hope some molasses on her feed, both making it more palatable and adding calcium, will get her going.

She is 12, we have had her since she was under 6 months old. For the last 9 or 10 years this gal has been giving us milk and meat (by way of offspring), she really does a lot for our family, is part of it, and her loss would be horrible.

On another note, hunting season, firearm, started this weekend (one of the reasons the cow wasn't up on the hill when she went into labor and would have made the situation deadly). But it is almost 70 degrees out, not good for hunting deer. I am in a t-shirt. And good golly is it windy today. When I let the chickens out this morning a gust hit that actually blew some of them up against the fence. Sitting way down here in the holler means we don't usually get much wind at all so to have gusts like that is incredible. I am glad I don't live on the ridge.