Dang! She's Havin' Another One

Spring! The season of renewal…rebirth…and hope. Spring, is also calving season…

Dang! She’s Havin’ Another One

Spring! The season of renewal…rebirth…and hope. Spring, is also calving season…a time of sleepless nights…endless days…and exhaustion. With each year since LeRoy’s passing, it takes me a bit longer to settle into calving and I dread it a little bit more. This year was no exception.

The last week of February and the first week of March had been bitter, cold, and nasty. I was exhausted, and calving season had barely gotten started. There were only two calves on the ground and I was longing for the end of April and the end to calving season.

It was barely getting light and I had been out most of the night. At one AM I had found 706 licking 802’s baby. Thought she would forget about it when she started to calve. Checked an hour later…nope! Tried to shut 706 in the west corral, but she wouldn’t co-operate. Pushed baby and 802 in there instead. Went back out 30 minutes later and 706 had a baby. The rest of the herd were uneasy and milling around.

Checked at three AM, baby hadn’t sucked, so hauled it to the barn and gave him some NurseMate. 706 didn’t want to follow, but was finally able to get her locked in.

Nothing going on at six AM and I decided to grab another short nap.

Walking through the cows at nine AM, I noticed 506 with a kink in her tail. I let 802 out of the west corral, tagged her baby, and pushed it out, then I drove 506 in, and shut the gate. I needed a revolving door.

Enough time has passed that I’m really not sure what I was doing while 506 settled into the birthing process. But whatever it was, I took peeked out a window every now and then.

At some point when I glanced out, I saw that 506 had a baby and was up licking it. But baby wasn’t moving. Dashing out the door, I ran to the corral. The calf had a bag over its face and mama was licking the wrong end. Through the membrane, I saw baby was struggling to suck in air. I hooked a finger in a tear and stripped the membrane off her face and watch her suck in a breath. I hung around until she sat up, my heart was pounding, and I was feeling a bit weak in the knees.

While I was out, I checked on 706 and baby. Didn’t look like he had sucked yet. Dang! She wasn’t happy about being put in the head catch, but she went in with some coaxing. Helped baby suck for a bit and then shut them back in the pen.

The next time I look at 506, baby should be up; and it is…but… Dang! She’s having another calf. Oh crap!

Now I was nervously pacing around in the barn, trying to walk off the adrenaline. Every now and then, I peeked around the corner to see what’s happening.
Good grief! Now 506 was backing up, shaking her head, and coughing. When I got to her, I saw she was choking on that thin membrane I had peeled off the calf. There was only about six inches of it sticking out of her mouth. All the time I was grabbing for it, she was backing up, shaking her head, and trying unsuccessfully to cough it up. Managing to grab a handful, I pulled on it only to have it pull in two and leave me with a handful of slimy membrane and her still choking. Desperately I kept grabbing, my heart was in my throat, thinking she was going to suffocate right there in front of me. I was finally able to get another handful and pull it free. The air whooshed in, as 506 took a big breath, ran her tongue in and out of each nostril, and dropped baby number two in a pile of afterbirth.

I fished through the pile of cleanings to find this baby covered in a bag as well. Tearing a hole in the sack, I stripped it off and carefully threw it out of the corral (didn’t want a repeat of the earlier incident). Baby number two was breathing and quick to sit up. 506 was looking like, ‘where did that come from?’ Thankfully, she went right to work cleaning him up.

I stumbled back to the house where the adrenaline catches up to me. My hands begin to shake and my knees were weak. I couldn’t believe in less than an hour I had saved a cow and two calves. Welcome to calving season 2015.

That afternoon, I tagged the first one, a heifer, number 3 and the bull calf, 3B. 506 was taking care of both, but I kept her in for several days, giving her grain to help cope with the extra burden of twins. I couldn’t help it; I started thinking of them as Jack and Jill. Jill was born first, Jack second. Jack would come see me and let me scratch his forehead. Jill would follow, but wouldn’t come close enough to touch.

It wasn’t long and they were eating grain with their mom. They were in the way so I turned them out into the calving pasture. I never saw such snoopy little butts, always running around checking out what everyone else was doing. It seemed like they were right there checking out every new calf. They were told to run along and mind their own business by many protective moms.

As they grew, I was surprised that they didn’t hang out with each other more and rarely sucked at the same time. Once in a blue moon, I would see the three of them bedded down together. 506 always knew where they were, but didn’t fuss about them. Guess her eight years of experience was showing.

At weaning time Jack and Jill weren’t the biggest calves, but they were nice. They were among the first to know what the feed bunk was for. 506 spent a couple days bawling for her babies, but soon forgot about them and went about her business of preparing for winter and the next calving season.