A couple of weeks ago, I told you all a story that started with Julia and me taking care of Bessie and her little heifer who had broken her leg. I told you all I didn’t think the calf was going to make it because she had an infection that had spread through her body and we just didn’t have anything that would touch it.
She was such a fighter.
But I had to tell Watson that it was time to put her down, because she could stand, but she couldn’t keep her balance long enough to eat. It had been eight weeks, and she had slowly gotten worse and worse. It was time.
So, he went out to put her down, but he came back in about ten minutes later and said, “I just can’t do it. She’s fighting too hard to live. She’s still struggling to stand, wants to eat… I’m going to rig up a sling for her.”
Well, he did, but as bad as she wanted to live, she just was too far gone.
I had told you about her mom, Bessie, and what a great mama cow she is. She raises beautiful calves, has plenty of milk, and just loves being a mom. (She’s like one of those moms that have playdates scheduled on the calendar, keep snacks for her kids in small containers with lids, and you never find a dirty diaper from last Sunday shoved in her baby bag. In other words, she’s not like me.)
Anyway, Bessie is such a great mom, and we happened to have an orphaned steer that we’d been bottle-feeding for about a week.
I really, really wanted Bessie to have a baby, because she just puts her whole heart into her little one, and so I talked Watson into taking her up to the barn and putting her in the head chute.
He tailed her, which kept her from kicking the calf and me [but didn’t keep her from stepping on us : ) ], while I worked with the calf to show him where he could get his lunch from now on.
Bottle-fed babies will usually suck pretty much anything, but we’d tried to get a different cow who had lost her calf to take him, but she wouldn’t, and he’d been kicked a few times and wasn’t sure he wanted to go down that road again.
Bessie is not one of our tame cows who will let us walk up to her and pet her, but she’s not a wild cow, either. And the little fellow was hungry. I squirted some milk in his mouth, and after working with him for ten minutes or so, he decided he was hungry enough to take his chances.
Now, if you don’t want to be grossed out, skip this paragraph, okay? Our head chute is such that Bessie could turn her head around to look at the calf while he was eating. I could stretch out the calf’s tail, and she could sniff it. Only, we had cut the tail off the calf that died (Bessie’s calf), and when I held the tail out, I held both tails out together, so Bessie smelled her calf and the new calf’s scent together. We also smeared Bessie’s manure and the dead calf’s manure on the new calf, so Bessie smelled both her scent and her baby’s scent on that little guy.
Janet Graham gave me those tips, and I’m pretty sure that’s the reason Bessie and that baby bonded. We put her in the head chute one more time that evening and kept them together in one of our small holding pens between feedings.
The second day, we saw the little guy eating on his own from Bessie (and her letting him!), and after a couple more days, she was protecting him like she’d given birth to him. They’re out with the herd now, together. : ) I’ll be smiling over that for a really long time.
So, I told the above story last year. Bessie’s adopted calf was weaned this spring, and she did an awesome job of raising a big, healthy steer.
Sunday on the farm we have four calves born. Bessie was one of those new mamas. I’ve been watching her for a while, just because I like her and know what a trial she had last year, and what a great mom she is.
So, it was pretty exciting to me to get to watch her big bull calf make his worldly entrance – he was an embryo, so he’s full-blooded Akaushi, and I’m expecting Bessie to raise another healthy baby. I guess I just wanted to share that, since last year was such a bummer for her.
Thanks so much for spending time with me today!
Hugs and blessings!
~Jessie