Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2006 21:51:16 GMT -5
I rejoice with each report from the forum members as they share about their new calves. It is an anxious time for us all.
The more cows you have the more the odds are that you walk onto a nightmare. We can handle almost any mess that the cows can get themselves into with the calf puller. With patience and determination we can jack any calf out of a cow. (Sometimes hard on both parties, but do-able.)
With the loss of our county's vet from a farm accident, the farmers are feeling the pressure. We had two incidents this week that we would loved to have had the vet for, but muddled our way through.
Walked onto a cow with the calf's head out. Yeah, that's a bad one, - cause the head doesn't go back in to let you get the legs. We've had that before, - also at a time when the vet couldn't come and he talked us through it. You guessed it. The head has to come off.
I heard the one son come flying to the house in the truck. I was upstairs (actually, was still in bed.) Next thing I heard was my husband sharpening a butcher knife in the kitchen. I'm thinking, "That can't be good." I was actually thinking they were going to skin a calf to do a graft. (We've been keeping a few newborns from the neighbor who breeds his Holsteins to Angus, - in case we lose a calf and need to graft one on.
That would have been a shame, but not near the gruesome ordeal they had. So, they took off the head and pushed the calf back in to get the legs and got it right out. --Then they got to skin the calf for a graft.
Nobody had much to say for the rest of the day.
A couple days later, we had a calf coming with just the tail - no feet. No vet, just us. What a mess. The calf was alive when we started, but it took so long to wrestle those legs out. Then, the angle was so bad with the calf puller and the pull was so hard that we snapped a leg. The one boy said, he was actually glad the calf was already dead, so the awful break didn't hurt him.
Everybody was traumatized from that one. The 23 year old and the 21 year old told me at different times during the day, that "I just can't get the sound of the leg breaking out of my head." So, we skinned another calf.
Both cows took the graft perfectly and are out in the field loving their calves that they think are theirs.
How thankful we are for every easy, successful calving. I am relieved when each of you log in with a report of a safe delivery.
homestead2
The more cows you have the more the odds are that you walk onto a nightmare. We can handle almost any mess that the cows can get themselves into with the calf puller. With patience and determination we can jack any calf out of a cow. (Sometimes hard on both parties, but do-able.)
With the loss of our county's vet from a farm accident, the farmers are feeling the pressure. We had two incidents this week that we would loved to have had the vet for, but muddled our way through.
Walked onto a cow with the calf's head out. Yeah, that's a bad one, - cause the head doesn't go back in to let you get the legs. We've had that before, - also at a time when the vet couldn't come and he talked us through it. You guessed it. The head has to come off.
I heard the one son come flying to the house in the truck. I was upstairs (actually, was still in bed.) Next thing I heard was my husband sharpening a butcher knife in the kitchen. I'm thinking, "That can't be good." I was actually thinking they were going to skin a calf to do a graft. (We've been keeping a few newborns from the neighbor who breeds his Holsteins to Angus, - in case we lose a calf and need to graft one on.
That would have been a shame, but not near the gruesome ordeal they had. So, they took off the head and pushed the calf back in to get the legs and got it right out. --Then they got to skin the calf for a graft.
Nobody had much to say for the rest of the day.
A couple days later, we had a calf coming with just the tail - no feet. No vet, just us. What a mess. The calf was alive when we started, but it took so long to wrestle those legs out. Then, the angle was so bad with the calf puller and the pull was so hard that we snapped a leg. The one boy said, he was actually glad the calf was already dead, so the awful break didn't hurt him.
Everybody was traumatized from that one. The 23 year old and the 21 year old told me at different times during the day, that "I just can't get the sound of the leg breaking out of my head." So, we skinned another calf.
Both cows took the graft perfectly and are out in the field loving their calves that they think are theirs.
How thankful we are for every easy, successful calving. I am relieved when each of you log in with a report of a safe delivery.
homestead2