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How Does This Dairy Farmer Deal With Loss of Life?

Krista Stauffer

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.

 

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Krista Stauffer

Owner at Stauffer Dairy
Krista didn't grow up on a farm but fell in love with a dairy farmer and now works alongside her husband on their family dairy farm, raising five children. Despite her non-farm upbringing, she embraces farm life, enjoys gardening, and remodeling their farmhouse. She also runs a successful women's boutique, manages social media for local businesses, and serves on the board of a non-profit creamery, showcasing her dedication to entrepreneurship and community service.
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