Hi I’m Mike, not everyday on the ranch is a winner.
Some seem to get away from you and there’s really not much you can do about it.
However, if you choose to learn from the bad, then its not a total loss as our first calf
of the year is born on the ranch, and we turn a bad day, into a good lesson on our Wyoming
life.
Abraham Lincoln said that we can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or we can
rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.
Its really how you look at it, and like most things there is a good and a bad side.
We wake up everyday hoping that the good out weighs the bad, and that really depends on
what you consider to be good.
If you have to win the lottery for it to be a good day, you are going to have a lot of
bad ones.
However, if you are happy to know your family is by your side, that you go to work everyday
with a mission to help yourself and others, and you have friends that support you in doing
that, it makes it a lot harder to have a bad day.
Bad things can happen but decided on how much you let them weigh you down is what keeps
you going.
Trust me, I know this.
This week has been a disaster.
I started out our time together this week putting in a gate and building some new pipe
fence, that project is slated to take two videos, which I am glad I did because it turned
into a total nightmare.
If I could have, I would have just let it lay, but the fence needs built and by the
time the next project list is due in your hands next Tuesday, you will have your fence.
This morning took my day down a different road, while I was still thinking about fence
and the issues I have to deal with there.
I went out to feed cows.
That process was completely normal, fed the cows without an issue but one cow was off
by herself, and this time of year that usually means one thing.
Calving.
We aren’t scheduled to begin calving until April 2nd.
But as I have said before we can start at any time.
Over the past few weeks we have been keeping a pretty close eye on the cows, keeping a
look out for suspicious behavior, like hanging out alone and not coming in for breakfast.
The culprit this year is number 41.
Shes an older cow, over 10 years old and has been on the ranch her entire life.
She’s had a calf every year and this year she is due to have her calf on April 15, a
little over a month from now.
A calf born a month early is a problem as their lungs may not be fully developed yet
and even though we were feeding, we stop everything to deal with her.
She is only about a quarter mile from the barn and bringing her in shouldn’t be a
problem.
She is showing that the bad the calf is in is exposed, and the bag has broken.
Usually cows will first present with an intact bag of fluid, once that bag breaks we have
about 2 hours for her to have her calf or we will need to help her.
I don’t know how long ago her bag broke, and therefore we better get her in to the
barn now to examine her.
If we have to we will pull the calf.
After leading her part of the way with the tractor, its time to play a bit of hardball
and go and get the gator to move her in the rest of the way.
She is enclosed in an area of about 3 acres but we need to bring her into the corrals.
Because of our pipe fence we only have one way to bring her into the barn and that is
through our lower gate.
But after trying to move her in that direction, its obvious she wants to go somewhere else.
Across the pasture she moves and ends up next to her calf.
Born only a short time ago.
Her calf is obviously premature.
With the absence of hair in places we can see that the coat has not finished coming
in.
I’m almost positive her lungs were not developed enough to even take her first breath.
Calves born an entire month early rarely survive.
They are underdeveloped and much to small.
They have no fat on their bodies to protect them from even a slight chill.
While we don’t know why she had her calf early there are some factors that can be considered.
Heat stress is one of the biggest causes of premature birth but I think we can rule that
out.
Nutritional deficiencies can play a role of course, but our most likely culprit here is
the age of the cow.
Also the cloudy eyes of the calf indicate that the calf has been dead for several hours.
Since I know that there was no calf here a few hours ago when I checked them, I can gather
that the calf died in utero and was still born.
The only way we can know for sure is to submit tissue samples and sometimes the entire calf
to the university diagnostic lab, however, that is not encouraged unless abortion rates
are higher than 2 percent.
The lose of a calf is a loss for the ranch, mom who was fed and cared for an entire year,
didn’t produce a calf.
That calf was income for the ranch, and there is no way to recover that money.
We don’t have calf insurance, if there is such a thing and there are no subsidies in
the ranching industry to offset crop loss.
The only thing we can do is watch, wait, hope no one else loses a calf and treat mom.
Number 41 seems to be in pretty good shape, she is protective of her calf and using that
instinct we can move her into a corral where she can be by herself for a while.
Eat and relax.
Most importantly, she can say goodbye to her calf.
While she does that, we can run back out to where she was when we found her and make sure
there aren’t any other issues.
It is a bit of surprise that she left her calf, clear down by the barn to come all the
way out into the pasture.
Where we can see she laid and bled, I’m guessing after giving birth, or maybe before.
There is no way of telling.
Part of treating mom is keeping a close eye on her for the next few days.
She will stay in the corral.
We want to make sure she passes all of the afterbirth and placenta and cleans out completely.
If that doesn’t happen in the next day we are going to have to examine her and make
sure we don’t have another issue to deal with.
She’s not having any more contractions, she wasn’t found to have twins at ultrasounding
but shes no where out of the wood work yet.
And she will stay under a close eye.
As for her calf, she will be buried and taken care of respectfully.
Losing your first calf of the season is actually a more common occurrence than you may think.
It has been a few years since we have had to deal with it, but it does happen and its
never a good experience.
Calving season is a time of new life on the ranch, and every one of these cows are depending
on us to be there, to help and be a part of their lives and their calves lives on the
ranch.
There’s nothing we can do to change what has already happened.
We move on, and we continue on.
You care about every animal out here, I know that number 41 is going to have a rough few
days, but I also know that I will do whatever I can to help her and all her friends out
here.
This is the beginning of a long season on the ranch, one where we don’t know what
is going to happen from day to day and every day can be turned upside down by just one
cow.
It’s the time of year we love and we hate but we know its our life.
It had chosen us.
Thanks for coming along today, please subscribe as we move forward.
Catch me on Tuesday and hopefully I finish a fence and don’t throw a tantrum while
doing it and on Sunday, you can catch both erin and I live during our weekly livestream
on beyond the ranch.
Until then have a great week and thanks for joining us in our Wyoming life.