Post by thystledown on Sept 5, 2022 16:53:54 GMT -5
It has taken me a week to report this. And today is also the anniversary of my late husband's death. Quite a week of greiving, but I'm better now. Not sure what happened to Heiferlump. She was lame in her left hind leg and I could here crunchies in that stifle when I milked. When I went to get her to move her to the night pasture (away from her calves), she did not come to the gate along with the calves and her soon to calve daughter. I didn't really feel like milking and assumed she didn't want to climb the hill. I took her her grain and scratched her poll. She was laying down. About 10 pm I checked on her to be sure she had gotten up to drink. She was now at the bottom on the pasture against the fence. I took hold of her halter and she climbed to her knees and crawled about 3 feet for me but could not get up. I cried inside, but stayed calm outside and got her a pail of water which she drank well. I called my husband to come out. She lifted her head to get her jaw scratched and had no signs of pain or stress, no wrinkles around the eyes or face. She seemed perfectly content and confident I'd fix things. We took Esther and the calves to another pasture. David got the tractor so we could have good light in the pasture and I asked him to put her down. He agreed and sent me to the house. Nevertheless, unbeknowst to me at the time (I was on the staircase in the house sobbing), he used some wide rachet straps to lift her with the tractor bucket (I wondered why he brought the big one) and determined she really could not move her rear end at all. He hated to lose her as well, and wanted to be sure it was hopeless. He put her down and buried her the next morning. I thought she might be in heat when I put her out that morning, and I'm guessing Esther jumped her, and with her bad leg she went down, damaging her spine. But she seemed very happy the pain was gone. And I'm glad I didn't have to make a hard call in the end. I really cried for about 24 hours and I will miss her for many years. She was such a dear sweet funny gentle good being. She was as smart as my dogs and horses and even when she stepped on a cat while I was milking, she never hurt me. I picked her out of a pen of calves (she was 3 weeks old) at a nearby dairy with an old show line of Jerseys. Her heifer calves sold 1st or second highest at 4H calf sales at 6 to 8 months of age. Her steer calves were gentle and good. Her daughter Esther is due to calve soon for the first time--and she is a good heifer that comes to me in the pasture even though she's been running with the beef herd since she was weaned. Esther is not pretty and will never produce show calves, but she's good natured and polled. Heiferlump produced a profit whenever I computed the annual cost/benefit analysis, and that was with counting the dairy products at store brand prices rather than grass fed and raw prices, though I didn't include the labor, but then, I don't count the labor on the horses or dogs and they don't produce anything! But then, I also didn't include the value of the clabbered milk that feeds the chickens and dogs, or the whey that goes on the garden. So maybe she'd have made a profit even with labor. I feel better when the weather now drops to 40F at night and rains. She won't be hurting now. She is my avatar, of course, thanks to Debby Lincoln. Here are some of my favorite pictures. Hope they all show:
Heiferlump and her first calf and first foster calf. She was 3 when she calved 1st time.
The last calf--past April.
Heiferlump as a calf with my daughter
Last photo below with her daughter Esther.
Heiferlump and her first calf and first foster calf. She was 3 when she calved 1st time.
The last calf--past April.
Heiferlump as a calf with my daughter
Last photo below with her daughter Esther.