What We Won’t Do to Save a Calf

I arrived home from work right before dusk. As soon as I walked in the door, David was following me. “Nan! We have a calf that we need to get up! He’s really weak and can’t stand!” I rushed upstairs to quickly change out of my work clothes, grabbed a couple of old towels and a blanket and ran out the door.

David had already started the side by side so I threw the towels in the back and jumped in. We raced off into the pasture to get to the calf. As soon as I set my eyes on it, I fell in love! David knows I love color!

I jumped in the back of the side by side (it has a dump bed on it) and put the towels on my lap. David hoisted the calf up and laid it in my lap. Of course I had to check “Bull calf!” I yelled. First one of the spring calving season. This boy was HUGE!

David raced across the pasture (forgetting I was in the back with a huge bull calf on my lap! It felt like he found every bump and log on the way back. When we arrived at the house he grabbed the calf from me and I ran into the house and set the blanket in front of the furnace. The calf was cold and wet!

As soon as we had the calf settled in we had to go back out to the pasture and coax the Momma cow to follow us back to the barn. By this time it was already dark and most of our cows are black! It took us a while but we finally got her into the chute and was able to milk about half a bottle from her. That first milk is so important to a calf, it has much needed nutrients and that very important colostrum. If a calf doesn’t get that first milk you either have to supplement with artificial colostrum or you’ll lose the calf.

I ran back to the house with that bottle of gold and hoped that the calf would be able to suck. If not we were going to have to “tube” him which requires us to stick a tube down his throat and into his stomach. I hate doing that! If you get it wrong and accidentally get the tube into a lung, you will drown the calf! Luckily, the calf sucked that half bottle of milk right down and, as soon as he was finished, wanted to try to get up!

David went back out the barn and made a nice warm bed of straw and we carried that calf out to the barn to be with it’s momma. About an hour later we went back out to see how they were doing and he was trying to stand and nurse. We left them alone and as we were walking back to the house we looked at each other and “high fived”! I love happy endings…don’t you!