This morning I was pretty excited when farmer came into the house to take the kids with him to get a load of grain. I had a huge pile of laundry on the couch that needed attention as well as a million other things that needed to be done. I had planned to take full advantage of not having anyone following me around undoing what I had just done and maybe even take a shower without someone “needing” something.
Right before he left, he let me know that our girl number two was in labor. I needed to check on her shortly to make sure the calf was OK. She has quite a bit of experience as this will be her sixth calf. He expected her to only take about 20 minutes based on her previous calving experiences. He should know, he had been there for everyone of them.
SO… naturally I think to myself that this would make a great blog post! Maybe even my first ever YouTube video. This was going to be perfect. So I ran (yes, I ran) to the house to get my NEW camera that I had just got for Mother’s Day. I was going to capture one of life’s miracles, a cow calving.
I got down to the barn as she slowly started to push the feet out. The little white hooves where sticking out, going back in, sticking out, going back in. I took a couple photos and BAM! My camera died. All the excitement of having a new camera, I forgot to charge it.
So I ran back up to the house to get my old camera. I got back just in time to see a little nose popping in and out. This was perfect! I snapped a couple photos and switched it into video mode. I began to film and BAM! The camera died.
I honestly was so upset, this was the perfect scenario. A cow that would calve with ease, no children, two cameras…
But then I realized something wasn’t quite right. The calf wasn’t coming out quite as smooth as it “should”. I grabbed a towel, wiped all the mucus off her nose, grabbed her two front legs and helped pull when her momma pushed. Three pulls and she was out. She was having some issues breathing, she had some fluid in her lungs. I grabbed the towels and started wiping her face and rubbing her down to stimulate her blood flow. Our cow was not getting up to check on her, she just laid there continuing to push. I checked the calf to see that it was in fact a heifer, I keep rubbing her to dry her as it was cold and windy today. I laid her to the side of her mom in the straw and headed in to get some more towels. I wanted the mom to get up to clean her off more.
When I got back there was a bag of water & plop out came calf number two!
Wait what? Two calves. How exciting!
Our girl ate her afterbirth, cleaned off the second calf, gave me a nudge and a lick then headed off to the feed bunk. She didn’t even acknowledge the first calf.
So I got the two calves, took them to the calf barn, dried them off some more, set up a heat lamp, covered twin number two with one of my good towels from the house, put a fleece vest on twin number one and made sure they were snug and warm in their calf pin. Later on after our girl had some time to eat and rest, we milked out some of her colostrum to feed to the two babies.
I am not going to lie, I have assisted farmer before with a difficult birth. I have cared for many newborn calves. But today, today I assisted one of our girls by myself. She had two healthy baby girls. She licked me & rubbed her head on me. It is never easy to take calves away from their mothers, in fact it is the part both farmer and I dislike the most (with exception of putting a cow down). I’m not sure exactly what was going on in her head but it is almost like she knew it was going to be ok and she trusted me with the babies.
Today was one of the best days I have had on this farm.
Krista Stauffer
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