I Don’t Love My Cows

This is what I hear all of the time from people who have obviously never had anything to do with the livestock industry. My cows are my world. I would do anything for the well-being of my cattle. Let me walk you through my past 3 days.

Friday evening, with no warning besides a (passed) date on the calendar, my favorite cow calved. She had a beautiful, albeit large, heifer calf and I was over the moon in love with her. I watched her take her first wobbly steps and meet the rest of the herd. On her second day, she was full of spunk as she ran away from me and my camera – no flash photography, please! However, she kept going down the muddy bank into the pond and then was not able to get back up. The second time she was rescued, I decided to bring her and her mama back to my house where it was much safer. This morning, I saw her out in the field but paid little mind to it. The equine vet was on her way out to put down my mother’s horse that I grew up with. Catty (the horse) had a really bad case of navicular disease, went blind in one eye, and was mostly deaf. It was her time to go but that didn’t make it any easier to let go of her. I had to go pick up my sister from a beach trip (oh, to live like the other half) and run a few errands in town. My mom took care of business with the horse and vet. When I got back home, I saw the calf hadn’t moved from where she had been that morning. My mom went down to check on her and said I might want to go down and just look her over too. She was lethargic, droop eared, and didn’t want to stand. I decided the vet should be called out and she came to do a general health check on the calf to see if she could find out what was going on. While I waited on the vet to arrive, I loaded the calf into a wheelbarrow and pushed her up the hill to the barn and waited with her and the cow in the yard for our wonderful cow doc to arrive. She got right to work and assessed the situation. The heifer’s suckling reflexes were very weak, and she hadn’t nursed in a while from what we could tell. My mom and the vet administered medicine and started an IV while I milked the cow – thank goodness for dead broke show heifers! – so that we could tube feed the calf. 30 minutes later, I finally had a half gallon of fresh milk. This was quite a task, and I’d like to believe that I now have the strongest thumbs east of the Mississippi. But, I did what had to be done in order to help my animals. We tubed the heifer – stuck a long hose-like tube down her throat and into her rumen – and gave her the milk to help kick start her immune system to fight off whatever was making her sick. Once this task was accomplished, we finished the IV and sat back to see how she did. She stood up not 10 minutes later and walked around a little bit before laying back down. I was so happy to see her feeling better. I went back into town to get my own tube feeder and a few other things for the calf. When I got back home and checked on the calf again, her back legs weren’t quite working. She had her hoovers bent back and was walking on her pastern (ankle) joints. This concerned me A LOT, so I called the vet again (she’s a saint) and was told to give her a different medicine and to put some splints on her legs to help encourage her to hold them straight. I went to the vet’s house to pick up the medicine and then to the dairy down the road for some splints – thank God for good neighbors. When I got back home this time, she wasn’t able to stand hardly at all. My mom and I gave her the new medicine and strapped on the splints. I went inside to grab a bite to eat – I hadn’t eaten since breakfast – and went to my room to digest the day’s events. Not even 15 minutes later I went back to the barn to check in on her again. I heard her bawling and sprinted across the yard and into the barn. She had been trying to walk but fell down and her hind legs had splayed out on either side of her. I got her fixed up right with all four legs on the same side and sat with her to see if she’d try to stand again. I sat with her and prayed that God would heal her. She continued hollering every few minutes and was clearly in distress. My mom came out again and sat with the calf as I talked to the vet and to my former boss at the dairy about what my next step would be. The situation was taken out of my hands as God took the baby to cow heaven while I was on the phone.

I collapsed in the yard, bawling because I had done everything in my power to save that calf. I know that this is just part of it, I know that this is sometimes how things go. That does not make it an easier pill to swallow. So, as we finish up burying my sweet calf, the one that I spent hours with doing everything I could to keep her healthy and comfortable, after the vet spent hours there with me and on the phone with me, and with my parents by my side and a bawling cow outside the door, I dare someone to tell me that I do not love my cows.