Here are some pictures of the prolapse. The before and after shots :)

The beautiful warm weather seems to have been eluding us lately. And somehow, the Vancouver rain has found me. The ground was drying up so well! Now, with all this wet everywhere, the corral is a nightmare to wade through.  With mud coming right to the top of your boots, it makes chasing cows through the pens impossible. You get your daily exercise and burn lots of calories though.

Two exciting (for me anyways) events this week!

The first being that we discovered a calf was born with all of its small intestine dangling out of its bellybutton. The calf seemed healthy otherwise, was up and walking around right away.  I imagine everyone was thinking that the lead to the head solution would be the way to go and that surgery wasn’t worth a shot. However, I really wanted to at least try and do something to save her, even though there was, and still is, a huge possibility that she will die anyways.  So, out came the needles, scalpel, iodine, catgut thread, penicillin and lots of warm water.  Since the calf was born in a pile of shavings, we needed to wash, sterilize and lubricate the intestines before they could go back in.  The belly button hole was not big enough to push them gently back in place; therefore, we had to make the hole a bit wider.  When the intestines were all back in place we sewed her up, gave her a shot of penicillin, got her fed and put her back with her mama. She didn’t even lie down. The tough little thing was up and walking around right away, as perky as ever.  As of now she is still alive and doing extremely well considering. I am so glad that we did all we could to save her; hopefully she’ll be all right and infection won’t get her later.  We named her Hope.

The second rather thrilling event of the week was when a cow had a full on uterine prolapse while calving out in the pen. This happens when the cow has been pushing so hard to get the calf out, that she actually pushes out her whole uterus.  In this cow’s case, she didn’t get up and see that the calf was out, so she kept pushing. We didn’t realize what she was doing until it was too late. Therefore, Roger and I set to work on her.  Once in the maternity chute, she got a shot of lidocaine in her spine to stop her contractions. Then we chained her up by the tail, one to keep her upright, and two, because it is easier to push everything back in when the cow is in that position. After washing off the uterus and getting some of the after birth out, we dove elbows deep and stuffed her uterus back in.  I’ve never been so covered in blood in my life! Then I gave her a big does of liquid myosin, to help stop infection, and some oxytocin. After sewing up the cow’s rear end to prevent her from prolapsing again, she was put back with her baby.  What a fun experience! It was so interesting to see what the uterus actually looks like and how the after birth is attached to it and so forth.

Those were a couple of very busy and eventful days, but otherwise the days here are pretty routine.  We have got quite the orphanage going in the barn.  We have our regular barn bum, power milker, Fritzel; she has been with us since the start of the season and is getting quite large. Then there is an older calf whose mother died of cancer recently. One twin calf whose mother rejected her and another twin whose mother did not have enough milk. That is a lot of hungry little tummies to feed.  It takes us a good two hours every morning and evening to feed them all.  Hopefully they will all find new mamas soon. Wanda figures there are only about 115 cows left to calve, hurray!  I will be happy when I can get a full night sleep again.

Now it is back to Six Mile and my awaiting bed . . . and then up at 1:00 again . . .

Time flies when you are having fun!  It feels so weird that two months of calving has already gone by.  It’s so hard to believe that in 57 more days I will be boarding a plane departing for Sweden! I can hardly wait to see my dear friends again, after more than a year gone by.

Meanwhile spring has sprung, up here in Anahim Lake! The songbirds are slowly but surely returning, filling the air with their sweet melodies. Sunshine has finally become a regular occurrence, reaching temperatures that make you work up a sweat.  There have even been a few sunburns going around. My ear was rather crispy a few days ago.  But the most obvious sign that spring is here would be the hatching and horrendous buzzing of the flies. My swatting hand is again in use. And oh, shock and horror, the first two mosquitoes of the year have been spotted! They had better stay in hiding until I am long gone; I don’t think I could go through another summer of nasty, flying, biting insects.

With all the warm weather, the snow has sure taken a beating. It is truly amazing and wonderful how much it has melted this past week.  The downside of this is that you can hardly walk through the mud (aka cow shit) without almost loosing your boots in it.  Needless to say, my afternoons have been spent digging drainage ditches in an attempt to keep the water levels in the corrals down. It is actually quite fun, reminds me of making little rivers in my sand box when I was little.

The calving has been fairly steady. We’ve had a few very busy days and a few slower days, a nice mix.

We had a great Easter at the ranch.  The boys went on a big Easter egg hunt and got loaded up with sugar. Their cousins and friends were visiting, so that was very fun for them.  We all decorated and died Easter eggs (courtesy of Jackson’s 30 or so chickens), and once again I am reminded that I am not an artist.  That was before eating a big lunch and then an even bigger turkey dinner.  All in all a great day!

It has been a slow calving week; I guess the cows decided to give us a few days off.  I have taken advantage of the time off by reading, taking some long afternoon naps and trying to go to bed as early as possible. The calving is slowly picking up and just in time because the weather has turned warm again! It is now reaching a balmy 12 degrees on a fairly regular basis! As a result, my snow pants can pretty much stand up on there own.
This past week there has been a run of twins. There have been about 5 pairs so far, I do believe. One set of twins was incredibly tiny. We weighed the smaller twin and it came to a whopping 18 pounds!  That’s like a medium sized turkey . . . but she is doing great, sucking well, determined to grow. She is oh sooooo cute; I could die! There was another calf born and that weighed 126 pounds. She is a very large girl that’s for sure. I find the difference in weights simply astounding.
Last night I went outside at my regular time of 1:00 to check cows. A full or almost full moon was casting bright light over the snow; I hardly needed the flashlight. I heard a lone wolf cry to his pack across the flat. And they, in turn, answered with an echoing chorus that seemed to put the cows on edge just a bit. What an amazing sound for nature.
The lady who gave me my kitty cat has another litter of kittens . . . this is so bad. I went to see them and now I’m thinking I need another one. It is so hard to overcome their cuteness!
Other than the regular, everyday chores, the occasional calf pulling and cow sorting, nothing much has been happening. Just the habitual ups and downs of the season.

The hustle and bustle has been slowly but surely picking up around this outfit. The calf count is now past 225. What fun to watch these little creatures race around with one another, tails stuck straight in the air, bucking and jumping as if they were practicing for the rodeo. These warm sunny days we have been having lately fills everything with energy and a feeling of the impending spring!

            On one particularly busy day, we had to pull three calves all in a row.  One was backwards, another was just too big and the last was upside down. I got to see it all in one afternoon. After all that “experience” I guess they thought I was the right girl for the job when yet another calf needed to be pulled that night. I felt inside, hooked the chains up to the feet and guided the calf out. It is so satisfying knowing you helped a little calf into the world!

            I plucked up the courage to try milk straight from a cow and I was pleasantly surprised. It didn’t taste terrible, amazing! In fact I thought it had less of a taste to it. I am now regularly having it on my cereal, yummy!

            And finally, the heifer that I have been so excited about and waiting oh so patiently for, has calved. She was the sweetest, quietest and cutest looking heifer of the whole bunch, or so I thought.  Her calf was large so it had to be pulled. It was a fairly hard pull too, but it lived and is good and healthy. However, when we let the heifer out of the maternity chute, she went absolutely NUTS. Attacking and screaming at anything and everything in site that even smelled human. My jacket that had been hanging on the gate got a good beating! Roger says he has never seen a cow do that in all his years of working with them. We gave her a few days to accept her baby, but she never did. So the calf was grafted onto another cow and has a new loving mother now.  My favorite little heifer has been designated for trail ride meat . . . they said they would save me a steak! Ohhh, I’m so sad, I thought she would make such a great cow. :’(

Unfortunately, there have also been a few more fatalities. One morning I walked out into the heifer pen and found a dead and extremely bloated cow in the mud. It seemed she had gotten onto her back, couldn’t roll over, filled up with gas and died. Apparently this is not uncommon and they can die within minutes from being in the wrong position. And sure enough, a few days later I was walking about doing checks and found a cow on her back.  She had just popped a calf out and was rolling around, legs flailing, trying to right herself. I hollered for help, ran to grab a rope and we managed to get her up without difficulty. It’s a good thing I walked by at just that moment though, or we might have had an orphan to deal with.

Another unfortunate event was when we had to pull a heifer’s calf and it got stuck halfway out for some reason.  They pulled and twisted the calf but he refused to come out.  Consequently, he suffocated because he was not able to fully inflate or drain his lungs. When we finally got him out it was too late.

With the dead pile accepting a few new members the scavengers have been around. There was a bald eagle and a HUGE golden eagle getting into a brawl over the food, boy was that was something to see!  The other morning I was lying in bed and was startled by a bang that shook the whole house. Shortly followed by two more equally loud bangs. There was a wolf by the dead pile and as I had guessed, they were shooting out the window at it. I don’t believe they got it though. Wolves are a real threat to the cattle and they can and do kill them if they get hungry enough.

There have been many happy births too. We had one heifer calf born, weighing in at 125 pounds . . . glad I wasn’t her mother.  Another calf was born premature but he survived and is doing very well. He is a tiny, short haired, toothless thing, that couldn’t even walk a few days ago and still has some difficulty eating. My goodness is he adorable though!

And today the oddest calf was born. For most of the day we had thought this calf had been stepped on by the mother; that would explain her large swollen belly. I noticed that her rear end didn't look right, a bit puffy and bulging. When we lifted up the tail, there were no holes. This poor little heifer couldn't poop or pee. There was really nothing we could do (even I, the optimist in these kind of situations, couldn't find a bright side) for the poor little thing but put it down. We opened her up and took a look at her insides. Her bladder was HUGE! Close to rupturing I'd say. And there was a strange watery sack attached to her liver that had everybody stumped; so she obviously had other issues too. It seemed as though her urinary and digestive tracts ran together somehow, and what would have come out was a mixture of both. Interesting, yet very sad to say the least.

About that lamb I wanted so badly, I think it will have to go on my 'future pets list'. I just don't know where I will keep him when I am moving around so much. But I WILL get one someday :)

A cow named Zipper

Probably the most exciting thing that has happened since I last wrote was the incident of the “Zipper” cow.  One Saturday night I stayed up watching Snow White and the Huntsman (a terrible movie, I would not recommend it) and got to bed at about 10:00pm. Two hours later I got up and did my night check. Fairly uneventful, I just put a heifer that was starting to calve in the barn. The protocol for calving heifers is to stay up until they have calved to be sure there aren’t complications. I waited for her to do something for about an hour or so and when she wasn’t even showing feet I knew something was wrong.  I got some help, saying that we needed to pull a calf . . . if only it had been that simple.  But what we found inside was very strange. Was it backwards? Was it in a curled position? Bunched up? Twins maybe? For three hours they tried to figure out what position the calf was in.  The calf was not going to come out; everybody was out of ideas and ready to put the poor cow down.  In a desperate attempt to save the cow, they decided to do an emergency Caesarean section.  Quickly, back into the house to grab needles, freezing, razors, scalpels, pliers, liquid myosin, oxytocin, warm water, iodine and a tail block (to stop her contractions).  The incision was made, kept as clean as possible, and the calf lifted out. It was dead by then. Just as they were beginning to sew her uterus up, she lay down. This is a very bad when you are trying to be hygienic.  I was holding her tail, which had been wrapped around the side of the chute to keep her still. Therefore, I basically had to hold up this cow by her tail. I am here to tell you that this is not the easiest thing to do, even when leaning my whole body weight on it I could barley make it stay.  However, soon I had help and we managed to chain her tail to keep her up.  By the time everything was said and done it was 7:00 in the morning and I was starting to fall asleep on my feet. The cow was put in a pen, shot up with drugs and was not given a high life expectancy. After that eventful night/morning, I went on to work for the rest of the day, finally crashing in the late afternoon.  But, I am pleased to announce that the heifer is doing very well; the surgery was almost two weeks ago and she is on her third dose of long lasting liquid myosin.  I always knew she would make it!