I had shut off farmer’s alarm clock. To be honest, I still don’t even remember when he had got in the house the night before. It was sometime after I had gone to bed at eleven. It had been a long day but then again that seems to be the norm these days. The alarm had gone off several times and he wasn’t budging so beings that I was half asleep I turned it off.
Once we were all up and going we headed in different directions for the day. He had cows to feed, chores to do and I had to get the kids going on school work. Sometime during the day #14 had injured one of her teats. It is something that doesn’t happen often and there is not exact reason as to why it happens. It can be something minor as far as just a piece of flesh missing or something major affecting her whole teat. In her case it was major. She needed immediate attention.
Now there were two options, tend to her injury and send her on the next truck to the sale barn or have the vet come to perform a surgery on that particular teat. So basically we were going to send her to slaughter once she healed or keep her as a three teat cow. Either way she required a visit from our local veterinarian & she would never milk out of that quarter again. Well the first option was not an option.
You see, prior to farmer becoming a dairy farmer, he raised 20 heifers (young cows that have not given birth yet). From birth to now he has been the primary care taker for #14. For the past seven years, every day (roughly 2,555 consecutive days) he has tended to her needs. He raised her on a bottle as a calf and was there as she birthed her first calf. Any little hiccup along the way, he was there. You couldn’t ask for a better cow. She gave birth with ease, bred without issue, milked consistently & had a great temperament. She was gently and loved to be loved on.
So farmer had the vet come to perform a surgery to remove the end of the teat and officially make her a three teat cow. This was a tough call, but it had to be made. From there farmer watched her closely. He monitored her for infection and her overall health. It didn’t take long for him to see that she was not doing ok. Her body didn’t take well to the surgery; she ended up with an infection in her blood. It was killing her.
So yesterday morning he made the call. As much as it hurts to be there, it is almost like I feel like I need to be there. Every time I hear that shot and know that they have taken their final breath on our farm. I feel like I have failed them in some way. As the caretaker of these girls, I feel like I should have (or could have) done something differently, but I know that whichever choice we would have made, we would have still lost her.
In the past almost five years, I have been told on several occasions that I need to toughen up. If I am going to survive this business I need to get used to it. The saying, “if you have livestock, you will have dead stock” is often thrown in my face. But I am here to tell you that I do not want to “toughen up”. I don’t want to “get used to it”. I don’t ever want to feel like an animal that dies on my farm is ok. That it is just the way of life and that is how it goes.
Why?
The day that I do not get upset about a sick animal or I don’t shed a tear over the loss of life, that will be the day that I need to walk away. I don’t ever want to reach a point where these girls become only a paycheck. I want to continue this way of life tending to their needs, but knowing that they are here for a purpose. I want to continue to feel “that” feeling when a new calf is born and feel the tears roll down my face with the loss of life. As long as we continue to our dairy farm, those tears will remind me that on a good or bad day this is what we are supposed to be doing.
We are dairy farmers because we do care, that is what dairy farming is all about.
Krista Stauffer
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If you have livestock, or any animal/bird for that matter dead is something you’ll have to deal with, often times sooner rather than later. In my small operation, it’s me that deals with death. If someone needs put down it’s done. Then I cry. For me, it’s not gotten easier, just the understanding of doing what is needed has. That’s where the toughness comes in.
If being tough means having no compassion, then I want nothing to do with it. Patricia is right – you do have to be tough to do what is needed sometimes. And it is okay to cry. If I could save all my tears in a bucket, I would have no fears of drought – ever, and that is something we deal with every summer down here in the south. You go right ahead and cry. And send me your addy and I’ll be happy to send you a hankie to use (and trust me, I’ll wash it and iron it, first). Y’all are doing a wonderful job – the love you have for your animals and farm are strong. My heart goes out to y’all for your loss – because there is no doubt you have just lost a very dear member of your family.
The caring you and farmer have for your animals, speaks volumes about how much love and caring you must have for your children; they are truly blessed.
Reblogged this on iSimpleTypeApp News and Support.
This is the one part of dairying that will never get any easier for us either. I’ve sat in manure with my feet bracing sheets inside a cow bleeding out after birthing waiting for a vet, held cows heads in my lap and prayed over many. If I’m fortunate, I can get home before the gun is fired. We have to learn to put a wall up at a certain time to guard us from totally becoming a basket case over the death of our BEBs (brown eyed bossies). I feel your heavy heart while knowing you will get over it again, but it never becomes an easy, ordinary thing.
It never gets easier… and I don’t think it should. We raise draft horses, so a bit different than cattle, but the feelings are the same. You raise them, care for them, teach them things and basically live with them for many years. You get to know their individual personalities and quirks and how to work around them. I can hold it together in an emergency situation and can even calmly make the call to let them go. But once they are gone, I may lay down and howl at the unfairness of it. But that depth of feeling also means you cry tears of joy when that newborn baby you’ve bred for and helped into the world stands and nurses for the first time. Farming will break your heart in one way or another, but it’s always worth the pain to be a part of those moments.
I feel your pain!!!! I have lived/worked on dairy farms all my 38 years of life. I cry whenever I lose an animal. I can’t hear the shot ring when one has to be put down. But there are the survivors that I have to keep going for. And that is the reason I keep going. For the future. My daughter is the 5th generation on our family farm. And I am helping her deal with this also. We learn at an early age. Time and life is precious.
Dropping in from link up at Dirt Road Charm… and am so glad I did!
Life on the farm is hard, there’s no denying that. But like you say, when it stops hurting to make the tough decisions… that’s when you’ve got a real problem! This is a wonderful post that more people, outside of our world of agriculture should read to help them understand our way of life.
I’m just getting into the farming business myself and have had to deal with this on several occasions. It’s one of the hardest parts: letting go. There is definitely that “toughness” to make the call, and I know someday I may have to be the one to pull the trigger as well, but I know that I am doing the right thing because I can’t leave them there to suffer and slowly die alone.
I don’t think people outside realize how easy it is to be attached to the animals, even if they are meant for the table. I have killed roosters that we raised on our farm. I make it a lot quicker than any predator likely would, and I always pray over them and thank them for their nourishment. It isn’t the easiest thing, by any means, but it is a part of life.
Never stop crying for them and never harden yourself against them, because then we will become what the media thinks we are: ruthless killers only in it for the money and not for the pleasure of knowing these beautiful creatures and their love.