Our new calf

OK, let me just start this posting out to say that I am NOT an expert on calves. It has been a very long time since I took care of one and by the looks of it, I think I should have taken a refresher course before we had this one! I just got off the phone with my sister and I just learned more in those 10 minutes talking to her about calves, than I ever could have imagined. She raises calves and I knew she would be the one to talk to. I’ll need to back up my story so you would know why I called her.

Daryl has gone on a trip for work and it was no big deal for me to take care of Stormy. He looked a little skinny last night when I went to bed, and I held my breath when I walked into the barn this morning to check on him. He was just fine.. but he still seemed a little skinny. So I tried to help him drink from the mother cow, and when I straddled him between my legs to hold him still by her backside to see if he’d nurse from the female cow, and after he peed on my shoes, he tried to kick me in my legs. Well, I figured anyone with that much spunk for SURE had to had drank from her . I told myself that I’d check on him after dinner. After dinner I went out again to see if he drank. He was just laying in the pen and I think he still looked pretty skinny, so I spent my time again trying to see if he’d drink from her. He did drink some, so I went on my way and spent the rest of the afternoon scanning in pictures. Then tonight came. I checked on him once again and I still was worried about how skinny he was. So now I had to come up with another plan. Daryl bought a calf bottle just in case the other day, so into the milk house I went to get it. When I came back, No Ears gave me a really funny look and just backed away. But it was desperate times, so I was going to hand milk her. I didn’t know who was more nervous – the cow or myself! But I figured if I wanted to get the calf fatter I knew it was something that I had to do. When I was trying to figure out how to hand milk a cow, the only thing that was going through my head was that I wished I watched the Waltons more, because I’m sure they hand milked cows on their show. But after a little bit, it was actually working. Then No Ears had about enough. She wasn’t going to let me do that anymore. I didn’t have that much in the bottle, but it was enough to give to the calf to see if he’d drink it. Well, he was thirsty and when No Ears saw that he was drinking out of the bottle … she got Mad! She came over and kept pushing the bottle out of my hand and then she started to push me. I don’t know how much a cow weighs, but she could push pretty good. Since she was in an open pen, and I was the only one home at the time I thought I’d better get out before I got hurt. No Ears is a good Mom, Stormy is just ‘a little slow’. So this is where I called my sister. She said if I had an esophagus tube so I could have the milk go straight into his stomach. After I told her that I never heard of such a thing, so that probably meant that I didn’t have one, she told me to check his belly to see if he had an infection. OK, this is what I was going to go and do. But I told her to keep her phone right beside her just in case I had questions. So back out to the pen I went and this time No Ears would not let me in, so I had to go in from the other side of the pen. I had to crawl in between these two boards and let me tell you something, your back side is not the same as it was 20 years ago. I got stuck! My head was looking down at the manure in front of me and my legs were half way up in the air. Some colorful language was coming out of my mouth and even the dogs that were standing there watching me went outside! I couldn’t get in the pen and I couldn’t get out of the pen. Finally I wiggled my way back out and knew that I wasn’t going to do that again. So back to the front of the pen I went and told No Ears that I was coming in. She was still mad and at this point so was I, but as soon as I crawled over the gate she started pushing me again. I wasn’t in the mood to get hurt so I went back to the other side and tried to figure out how to get into this stupid pen. I couldn’t climb over it, so I moved some of the boards and eventually crawled in. I pulled the calf to me and checked out his stomach. It didn’t seem that he had infection, and I called my sister back. She said that he should be OK, and to warm up any milk that I still had left in the bottle for him. She said that I was probably worrying about him too much (you think?) So now I’m writing this post and it’s after 10:30 pm. I haven’t gotten much, or anything done since 6:00 other than hanging out in the barn. Daryl will be back home tomorrow, and I think we’ll put both the cow and calf outside in the shed. Not only is No Ears all worked up, but the other cows are also. When they see me walking through the yard, they don’t understand why I won’t come over to them and feed them. Then when they know that I’m in the barn, they start mooing and I just have a mess on my hands. I usually end up giving them more corn to keep them quiet, but I think the whole bunch are just a little bit too spoiled, don’t you?