J.W. runs a pretty sizable, cattle operation a couple of counties east of me and opts to calve out all of his cows during the fall season. Visiting with him recently, he told me that he had over 300 calves born in August alone, and that in the mix of calving this year, he was also calving out over 100 first-calf heifers. I can’t even begin to imagine the number of sleepless nights the cattleman had to endure.
My friend is a respected producer that does things right, by pelvic-measuring the heifers before breeding and using only the most proven, low-birth-weight bulls, for their first experience of motherhood. Still, there are going to be problems, but J.W. stated that the process was so much easier, now that he was able to inject the cows that need assistance.
“I don’t have to get the females frightened and worked up, by running them into a corral,” my friend stated. “I can just medicate them where they are, get the calf out, and give them another injection of ‘wake-up’ medication. Easy-Peezy!”
J.W. also keeps all the heifers in a pasture close to his house so that constant checking is not a problem. The field is almost completely open, with just a few shade trees along a small stream that runs through it.
On a recent morning, he noticed one heifer off by herself at daybreak. He made a mental note of which one it was, and began his day of checking all the cows and calves while tagging the newborns. Throughout the morning, the lone heifer continued to stay under a shade tree beside the stream, until about noon when J.W. saw the appearance of two feet and a black nose protruding from the heifer’s business end.
“I’ll give her two hours,” he commented to his assistant.
His assistant, a neighbor who works a job in town during the evening shift, reminded J.W., “You do remember that I have to leave at 2 p.m., to go to my real job?”
“Yeah,” J.W. answered, “No worries …I practically have my own O.B. clinic now.”
By 2 p.m., the helper left and the heifer had still not calved. Not wanting to get her agitated, J.W. rode down on his ATV to within a 100 yards of the expectant mother and watched her through his binoculars. Up and down and up and down the young cow nervously fidgeted, until 3 p.m., when my friend thought he detected the unborn calf’s tongue was beginning to swell. It was time for him to intervene. He rushed back to the barn to get the bottles of sedative and antidote.
The rancher was back in less than 5 minutes and the heifer was facing him now, so he patiently waited until she turned her head and when she did, he injected her. Now, while he waited for the pharmaceutical to kick in, he wondered why she kept looking down toward the creek and gently mooing. After a couple of minutes, the young female started wobbling and then laid down and actually rolled over as she slid, out of his sight, down the creek embankment. J.W. grabbed his calf puller and quietly walked toward the sedated cow, but, as he peered over the stream bank, he was shocked to see the anesthetized cow lying partially atop the legs of a newborn calf. The heifer had given birth in the 5 minutes that J.W. had been gone to retrieve the medicine.
Hurriedly, my friend pulled the youngster from under his mother and cleaned his nose and mouth. A few minutes after administering the antidote to the mother, she awoke and started caring for her baby as if nothing had happened.
J.W.’s experience reminded me of the old adage, “a watched pot never boils.”
Given this event, I think we could add, “make sure your pot is full.”
