Yesterday we got to the barn in time to see another calf was
about to be born. At least we were in there for this one. Now, Stripe cow does
yell as she goes by her baby Tessa, but she licked her clean and did all the
nice cow mom stuff she was supposed to and was protective. She calls out for
her calf and the calf returns the call from her stall down the barn. Gertrude
just ignored hers completely and I was ‘mom’ until we sold him.
Dot, on the other hand, is the darnedest thing I ever saw,
and people, I have been raising cattle a long time, as in, off and on for over
thirty years. She was quietly dealing with her labor while we moved the ladies
in and out of the parlor to milk. During the second round I noticed the feet
heading out but she wasn’t done by the time we were. It was, however,
completely out by the time we got the first half (4) back in their stalls, so
we stopped what we were doing to deal with getting the calf up to mama so she
could lick it clean.
This important for a lot of reasons: 1) It cleans all the
yuk off the calf and dries it. 2) It stimulates the calf to breath – like when
they smack a human baby’s bottom to make it cry the fluid out of its lungs. 3)
It warms the calf. 4) It stimulates the mama cow to finish the delivery process
by expelling the afterbirth. If she doesn’t clean out, she’ll get an infection
that costs a lot to clear up and it could interfere with her being able to
breed back.
What Dot Did
Dot sort of licked at her calf. We had to babysit her
cleaning it to a point where my husband forgot we had cows still in the parlor
waiting to be put back until I reminded him. We got them put up to much
foolishness as they wanted to play with the new baby and we had to stop them. This
being done, we were back to monitoring the cleaning process. We constantly had
to push the calf back to his mother (it was a bull) and she would just scream
at it. I’ve never seen a cow scream at her calf that way. It was like she was
saying to it, “So you’re the reason for all my discomfort!” The reason we were
monitoring her when we normally would have left her in peace? She kept trying
to bite him. Seriously! She opened her mouth and almost took off an ear. She
bit his neck. She went for his side. She had his foot in her mouth. She kept
pawing at him with her front foot. We thought at first she was trying to get
him into a position where she could get to him better, but she was knocking him out
of the way even though her instinct told her to lick it clean. We made sure she
did the licking part and she did most of it before she got too out of hand with
him and we finally just took him away and finished cleaning him off ourselves.
She calmed right down. Weird.
We took another round into the parlor even though she would
be the only one to get milked so we could get the colostrum for the calf. There
was no way she was going to let him nurse and she wouldn’t allow us to hand
milk her. The calmest cow we had, even in training, went totally berserk when
we actually tried to milk her. (Yup; had to hog tie her.) But, I got the
colostrum and fed the poor little guy and made sure he had his blanket on him
because he was shivering. It is cold up here! He ate well though.
Later, after the chores were finally finished, we sat across
from the calves watching them. The new one was breathing funny and my husband
thought he might have gotten pneumonia since he didn’t get the proper
stimulation to get the fluid out of his lungs, but then I noticed how he had
him tied up and jumped up just in time. His breathing got worse by the second
and he was gurgling. I said something colorful and grabbed my pocket knife and
cut the string free and started stimulating him to breath. My question to my
husband was why does he always tie a slip knot on their necks? He didn’t think
it was a problem the way he ties them. I had to inform him it was because I
ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS, have to go back and either retie or start from
scratch, the string he uses to tie them up because it tightens up on their neck
and chokes them. He has just never seen it I guess. I had to teach him how to
tie it so that it doesn’t slip and choke them anymore. We’ll see. The calf is
fine and breathing right now. No meds needed.
I won’t give the little guy a name. Bull calves are worth
too much right now to keep him and we don’t have our calf facility set up yet.
We’re using unused cow stalls for them until then and it isn’t that much space –
only four stalls. We can fit 8 little ones in that, but once they start to grow
they’ll need the stall to themselves.
Are you getting a barn full of new calves?
Tessa photobombed him.
Mom- Dot
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