Friday, April 12, 2013
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 . . .
Thursday, April 4, 2013
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!
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