Hi I’m Mike, very often the ranch is about life and death, and sometimes its about death
and life as we find out today, on our Wyoming life.
Welcome back to our Wyoming life, thanks for joining us once again.
We really enjoy being able to take you along with us as we continue to explore the ranch
life and escape the ordinary.
And that’s not just a saying for sayings sake.
Its true for us too.
Every day is different and we never know what to expect.
The hope always has been that we know how to deal with the unexpected and if we don’t,
we know who to call to help us out.
Now we can add to that by saying that if we do have to deal with the unexpected, we hope
we have a camera handy, so we can bring you along with us.
To that end, we hope that you subscribe and hit the bell so that you get notified when
a new video from the ranch comes out, so that you don’t miss a thing.
Tuesdays are usually reserved for the project list and today is no different, and the top
project on the list for this time of year is to save lives and that’s what we are
going to do today.
Each day of calving season starts with the same goal, to have as many healthy calves
as possible and to help those that need our help to be healthy.
As we head out today, we find calves that have just been born, and we tag them with
a numbered tag.
This give us a way to track each calf.
Who its mom is, and start a running record of its health and vaccinations for its entire
time here on the ranch.
By keeping close records we can tell if a mom is more likely to have a boy or girl,
who has heavy and who has light calves and who may have more trouble than others.
We also know the demeanor of mom, who is going to be cranky about me being around her calf
and who isn’t really going to care that I am there or what I am doing.
Occasionally we find a calf that is really going to need our help, this is number 4s
calf.
Number 4 has never had any issue with calving before or taking care of her baby, but this
calf is extremely small and was found still on the ground after being born, unable to
stand and was quickly brought into the shop for treatment.
Because he is so small, only about 40 lbs, he has very little fat on his little frame.
Even though temperatures are up in the 40s, he never warmed up and started to freeze down.
First we need to know what we are dealing with, and we can get a good idea by taking
his temperature.
His temperature is about 10 degrees below what it should be, a normal calf temperature
of about 101.
Before we can do to much with him, we want to get his temperature up to normal.
This will hopefully help all of his bodily functions begin to work normally, if we tried
to feed him or medicate him now, it may not do any good, and it may actually be more harmful
than helpful because his body is not able to process what we would give him.
So into the calf warmer he goes and we check on him throughout the night, about once per
hour until we get him up to normal temperatures.
Our calf warmer is manufactured by Koenders Manufacturing.
I think it cost around 500$ and when I bought it a few years ago I hoped that it would pay
for itself.
Which it has done time after time.
Before we had the warmer, we used to bring cows into the house and submerge them in a
tub of warm water, which works but it also washed off the identity scent that cows use
to identify their calves.
After we brought cows in the house to warm them up, we had a heck of time getting moms
to take them back.
With he calf warmer, they don’t lose that scent and reclamation happens almost immediately.
This little guy will spend a few hours in the warmer.
There isn’t really a formula to figure how long it will take a calf to warm up, usually
within the first hour they will gain up to 5 degrees and it’s the last few degrees
that will take the longest.
Once his temperature is back up to where we need it, we can give him some food.
This will be a colostrum supplement, which will be administered via an esophageal feeder.
Feeding a calf this way, can be intimidating at first, but just follow the directions on
your specific feeder and by feeding this way you can make sure the calf is getting some
nourishment, especially when they don’t have the energy to suck on a bottle.
Once that is in him, we are going to give him some nursemate.
This stuff I am not too sure about, I can never get a calf to eat all of it, but I figure
some is better than none and its not too expensive.
This is a paste given to the calf to hopefully get the bacteria in their bellies up and working.
With all this done there is nothing to do but wait until morning, he is too small for
me to get an IV into so if he is not better by morning, then we will take him to town
to the vet where they will be able to give him IV fluids.
And all night long we continue to check him.
But by morning we have bad news, when we find him gone.
The struggle of life was maybe a bit too much for this little guy, he was born with the
odds stacked against him and he is our first loss for the season, but as we always hope,
with each cloud, comes a little silver lining.
While out checking this morning we find our first set of twins, born only a few minutes
ago and already mom has chosen her favorite of the two, leaving this little red calf on
his own.
If we don’t help him, he will die, so into the gator we go, for the trip back to the
shop, where now he heads into the calf warmer to rest.
For a twin hes is pretty good sized, at 60 pounds and full of spunk, which we are going
to put to use this morning as we are going to attempt to not only help him out, but also
help out the mom of the calf we lost this morning, number 4.
Who we have to go out and bring in from the field.
We call her eyebrow cow, for good reason, and because she knew we had her calf from
last night, she is close by, just outside the lot.
We lead her in, and down through the corrals and eventually into the barn, where we are
going to introduce her to her new calf, lucky number 13.
While she is held in one stall, we put number 13 into another and today we are going to
be tricking moms nose to make her think that this is her calf.
There are a few ways to do this, one is to skin the dead calf, then drape his skin over
the new calf, then the mom smells her calf and allows the new one to suckle and eventually
become her own.
Another is to use a product called orphan no more.
I always keep some of this on hand, and it works pretty well for me.
I would say I have about a 75% success rate with it.
Its easy to use and doesn’t require anything more than a little water and the powder to
get this operation rolling.
The water is poured on the calf for the powder to stick to, and then we can introduce calf
and step mom.
Only time will tell if this is going to work and privacy is required for the two of them
to hopefully bond with each other.
To help this along a bit, I am going to add a bit of cake to the corral and around the
calf, giving mom and excuse to come sniff around and a bit.
Things don’t start out well, but eventually mom settles down enough to go for the cake,
but even then after a few hours she still wants nothing to do with the orphan calf.
Its then, that we can bring in a bottle and give him some food that I’m sure he is hungry
for, before putting them to bed for the night, for more forced bonding.
By the next morning, attitudes have changed and old eyebrow cow has now come to her decision
about the new calf.
And letting him into her family.
As another day begins, we start all over, new adventures await, and number 13 and number
4 will continue to get to know each other, until they are allowed to head out in a couple
of days to begin their season on the ranch.
There are many times when we have to turn a bad into a good.
I think without being able to do so this job might just drive you crazy, and there is something
to be said about timing.
Right when we needed an extra calf to make things right, we got one, and luckily we knew
what to do with him and everything worked out.
If number 4 wouldn’t have accepted him, then we would have had a bottle calf to feed
but luckily we don’t and I can share one trick that I have found to help this work.
That is that number 4 never saw her dead calf, she didn’t know what happened to him, aside
from me taking him to the barn.
I think her instincts told her that he was still in there, and although he now maybe
smelled a bit different, to her, it still made sense, even it if was a bit odd.
That, and Orphan no more…that stuff does work and I think they should make it for more
applications.
NOW INTRODUCING, SAD NO MORE.
JUST A SPRINKLE ON YOUR CORNFLAKES EACH MORNING AND YOU CAN SAY GOODBYE TO DULLDRUMS, GLOOMY,
BLUE AND EVEN CHEERLESS DAYS.
FROM THE MAKERS OF ORPHAN NO MORE AND SAD NO MORE, COMES SINGLE NO MORE.
HAVE YOU RECENTLY BEEN DUMPED, ADD A BIT OF THIS TO YOUR COFFEE AND GET READY FOR THE
OPPOSITE SEX TO BE LINING UP AROUND THE BLOCK JUST TO MEET YOU.
ITS SINGLE NO MORE- NOW AVAILABLE IN PARADISE BREEZE.
Alright, thanks for coming along with us today.
And thanks for being here for another miracle on the ranch.
The unexpected comes in bad and it also comes in good.
Embracing those good moments makes it all worth it, just as it does in life.
Subscribe and continue along with us this calving season, don’t miss a thing.
We have more videos coming up, 3 times per week, you can check us out on facebook and
Instagram for daily updates and if you head to our website, you can view a live webcam
of the ranch, with more cameras coming soon.
I am off to enjoy another beautiful day on the ranch, and I hope that you have a great
week, until I see you again, thanks for joining us, in our Wyoming life.