Little Adventure

I wasn't going to write a blog post tonight.  In fact, my late afternoon/evening plans had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the computer.  I was going to spend my hours going through old magazines and newspapers, clipping and sorting the articles I wanted to keep, and throwing out the rest.  A couple hours in, at 5:15 pm, I decided that I had better go check the cows.  It's calving season and I check the cows every few hours.  Now, I have two options I can use for checking the cows.  I can do it the old fashioned way by pulling on my boots and trudging out through the mud to check the cows in person.  Or, I can turn on the television, control the camera that's mounted on the back of the barn, and check out what's happening on the straw pile.

At this point in time, I was feeling pretty sprightly, so I decided that a breath of fresh air would be lovely and optimistically pulled on my boots.  When I got to the calving pen, I saw that #67 - a white heifer that I've been watching extra closely for the past couple of days - was calving.  Or had calved.  I wasn't quite sure.

I'm going to get a bit graphic just now.  Normally I wouldn't do this, but this is a key detail in the story.  When a cow is going to calve, the water bag hangs out of her rear end.  After a cow has calved, the afterbirth hangs out of her rear end.  In some cases, these two things can look quite similar.

When I first saw #67, I thought she had already calved.  The stuff at her rear end looked like afterbirth.  But there was no calf.  That is to say, there was no newborn calf.  #67 was enthusiastically licking (or love-mauling) a two-day-old calf belonging to #212.  Certain that she had calved, I searched carefully all over the straw pack, but found nothing.  I checked in the calf shelters, looked around the perimeter of the hay feeder, examined each and every animal in the pen, and slipped through every inch of mud, but found no new calf.  Well,  I thought, I guess she hasn't calved yet.  I'll check back in an hour.

One hour later I turned on the television.  I didn't feel like slopping through any more mud.  I moved the joystick controller around until I had located #67.  She was alone.  That poor little calf she had been licking earlier had escaped to sleep in peace somewhere.  She had either already calved or had made absolutely no progress.  I moved that joystick all over the place, but there was no new calf.  It was time to call Dad, because I just couldn't comprehend what I was seeing (or rather, not seeing).  I was so sure that this heifer had calved, but there was no evidence.  No calf.

I called Dad and explained the situation.  He said it was probably the water bag hanging out.  He would come as soon as he had finished eating dessert, so I pulled on my boots and sloshed through the slush and mud to go see for myself that there was simply no calf.  I also looked carefully at #67.  That ain't no water bag, I thought. 

My dad arrived and we chased #67 into the barn.  Dad put on his calving suit and a long glove and reached into the heifer.  To his surprise (and my "I told you so") there was no calf in there.  We went back outside and scoured every inch of that calving pen.  Still no calf.

Both stumped, we returned to the barn and my dad reached in again, as far as he could go.  Still no calf.

There was only one more place to check.  It was possible - unlikely, but possible - that the newborn calf had slipped under a high part of the windbreak next to the straw pack, and had slid into the adjoining pen.  We had sort of looked out in that direction earlier, but hadn't seen anything.  We would have to go out into that larger pen and walk around until we found something.  Before we even made it to the the gate, my dad looked way out into the pen, down the hill, and said, "Well there's a new calf!"  Indeed, there he stood, a wet little calf just hanging out with a bunch of cows that are nowhere near calving.

We walked out and checked the calf over.  Dad noted, with some surprise, that the calf appeared to have been licked off.  I wasn't surprised.  I mean, if I was a cow and some warm little wiggly thing had slid into my pen from next door, I'd sure go investigate.  When cows investigate, they often lick.  I figure that calf probably had two or three cows licking him off, while his poor confused mama went around licking calves that weren't hers and waking them from a sound sleep.

Dad carried that little calf back up the hill and into the barn, while I opened gates and doors for him.  #67 was quite relieved to have her calf back, and we left them in the barn to get acquainted.

What an adventure it is to have cows.  What an even bigger adventure it is when they calve!