The Morning report 5/29/14 Yesterday’s plans were never done because it all changed when I checked the pasture. Apparently the #77 cow did have a calf at some time in the last month, a solid black bull calf. We had noticed that there was a calf in the field the day before all by itself and it was still there yesterday morning. I went and checked on it and when I got to it; it got up and came to me and allowed me to touch it all over. This is not a usual occurrence with a calf that is a month or so old. I could tell by looking at it that its sides were caved in from the lack of groceries and knew then that my morning was going to be a different one from what I thought I was going to do (which now I don’t even remember what it was). I returned to the house to tell Kathy what I was planning to do; build a pen for the calf and starting to feed it by bottle or whatever it will eat. I asked her if she would go get the calf manna and a milk supplement while I was building the pen and of course she would. I then got on the tractor and changed the hay spear out to the forks and went to the pens that I had built for catching the steers when they went to the butcher. The first thing was to tear these pens down and use the panels and gate for the new calf pen. We decided that with the weather being like it is; hot and rainy, it needed a shaded spot where water could be gotten to it fairly easy and there would be shade. We decided that the best place was in Grayson’s paddock under his cover. I got everything tore down and on the forks of the tractor and proceeded to put it back up. Now I’m like everybody else, I like for things to be square and this pen was not going to be no matter what I did. After about an hour of moving these panels around; I finally had a little pen built that should work for this calf. The water trough was added and filled with water and I was about ready to go get the calf when Kathy got home with the other stuff. It was unloaded along with a $40.00 bale of hay that was in the back of her car. She didn’t think about it when she left and drove the Lincoln to get the stuff and now the Lincoln has been christened as a farm vehicle. I put a feed bucket in there with some calf manna in it along with the dry milk supplement for when the calf gets there. Then it was time to go get the calf. The calf had moved from where it was close to where the pens was and was under the oak tree along with several other cows and calves. I was able to walk up to it and help it get up. I fashioned a halter out of the lead rope I took with me and started to try to get the calf to be lead to the pen. Of course with the best of intentions on my part did not mean that they were the same with the calf. It did not want to go. I grabbed its tail and held on to the lead rope and started backing across the pasture pulling the calf. We had to stop many times on our trip mainly for me to rest and also to let the calf have a breather. There was a couple of cows that came up to us and I kept hoping that one would run me off and claim the calf but none would or did. Finally I got the calf inside the paddock and only had about 25 feet to go when the calf laid down and refused to go anymore. It was fine for a few moments because I needed to rest for a little while and we were in the shade so a stop was a good thing. After resting for a few minutes, we started again but the calf did not want to get up, I tried a lot of things to include trying to pick it up and finally just grabbed the front feet and drug it into its new home. Of course when I got it in there; it stood up. I went up to the house to cool off and then take some of the milk supplement as a liquid back to it. Kathy put some in a baby (human) baby bottle and I went back down there. I straddled the calf and stuck the bottle in and it began to drink which I was glad to see. It drank all of what I had and wanted more but we did not want to overdo it and I went back to the house; I was pretty well whipped by this point. After Zeb got home from school and it was time to feed, we went back down there with a calf bottle half full of the supplement and fed him again. Still when we got there, it didn’t want to get up and I had to lift it up but once the nipple was in its mouth, it became real happy and drank all we had. It still didn’t want us to leave without more feed, I convinced it to drink some water and gave it some calf manna and we left it. Eeyore and almost all the cows were very curious about what was in there but Grayson really did not want to come into his paddock. I was able to get him in there finally and then had to catch him to bring him up to his feed bucket. After he realized that it wasn’t going to hurt him, it was just something different he ate like he usually does. That was just another day on the farm. Y’all have a great and wonderful day and remember to take a moment to smell the roses!
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 10:12:44 +0000
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