Not a Happy Story

Yesterday afternoon I went out to clean the livestock water tank for the cows that had come down from the hill and I noticed that Ginger had had her calf.  (Last year had to pull her calf and was trying to keep tabs on her as she got closer to calving.)  I knew something was wrong because she wasn't with the calf, so I started walking the pasture looking for a dead baby.

I finally located this little one, still alive but struggling.  Called my vet friend, Ann, to get suggestions and she said to dry it off and try to stimulate it into getting up and find a way to get it some colostrum.  She seemed to respond somewhat so I was encouraged and started trying to think how I could get some colostrum.

Tried to get the mother to go back up the hill, but she would have none of that, so called around to neighbors -- no luck.  Farm supply stores were closed by then, too.  One of my wonderful neighbors, Earl, offered to come over an access the situation.  He helped me try to get it up, too, but the calf was just to weak.  All of this took about an hour and a half and, in the end, life was just too much for the little one and she died.  We loaded her onto Earl's 4-wheeler and I put her under the Burying Tree up over the hill.

I'm so mad at Ginger, her mother, that I'm seriously considering changing her name to Ann Coulter and selling her.  (In helping me try to find a way to be able to let go my steers, a friend suggested it might help if I named them Dick Cheney :) -- I'm working on it.)