You guys been enoying

Jpshostr · March 22, 2002

Been on spring break now, this is only the second time I've been on the net since I got home.

Calving season started last week, so dad and I have been staying busy with that. Why do cows always have to help have their calves when it gets cold as all heck outside? Tuesday I pulled a big one from a first time heifer, it was kind of cold that day but not too bad. Yesterday dad and I have to sort out a few too watch, nothing much happens. Today its 18 degrees all day with the wind blowing 35-40mph and problems up the wazoo. I find one of mine in the west shed with one leg sticking out upside down (a VERY bad sign) and she is as pissed off as a cow can get. Calf turns out to be backwards and dad and I both have to tug on it as hard as we can to get it out, then run as the cow tried to kill us. At least the calf is alive even though I couldn't feel my hands and I'm covered in mud and other stuff. Then another cow has one in the middle of the pasture. Calf is so cold it can't stand to get its first milk. Out comes the loader tractor, 90 cold frustrating minutes later the two are finally in a pen warmed up and the calf is nursing. Again, success after being chilled to the bone. Now I'm informed I have two more cows to keep an eye on while dad goes to one of my sister's softball things, hope things will be normal.

All in all though, its tough to describe the feeling you get after you pull a calf that would have died without you being there even though you are tired, hurt, dirty as ####, and smell real bad, you just feel real good about what you've done. I guess thats why we do it.

And by the way, sitting here in the heated house feels REAL nice after being chilled to the bone all day.

pacodiablo · March 22, 2002

too much detail on cow birth!! i hope you washed your hands!!

MountaineerTom · March 22, 2002

Glad all is well with them JP.

(Paco is gonna love that story. You should have hired him to help. )

-----

Looks like he beat me to it.

Jpshostr · March 22, 2002

too much detail on cow birth!! i hope you washed your hands!!

Paco, I didn't even scratch the surface of the details. I was thinking of you the whole time I wrote that and kept it nice and simple.

And all you guys that are down in Florida or Texas or someplace like that on break, just shut up, don't say a word, I don't want to hear about it. :plainsmile:

gandolphxx · March 22, 2002

If you do any more of these posts, we will have to start a "darker side of farming" group - sounds like your doing something more fun and useful than getting over a hangover on the beach in Cancun

sincityZ71 · March 22, 2002

Well, I would be glad to help ya out and freeze my butt off too if I could Jp. Of course Ill. is a long ways a way from here...so that kinda makes it hard for me to help. Glad to hear all is okay with the cow and calves though.

March 22, 2002

At least you can keep your hands warm when you're helping! :ehh:

Shaners · March 22, 2002

I wondered where you were... I had some thoughts, but sticking your arms up to your elbows in the backside of a cow wasn't one of them!!! LOL!!!

doverarjim · March 22, 2002

JP I don't know about you but when a calf hits the ground and it is cold and windy or rainning like crazy I just love the look on those calfs faces it's like "can I go back to where I was?" You know the look "is this what the world is like?"

CMNTMXR81 · March 22, 2002

I was wondering too, I noted one of the voices of common sense was gone.

Jpshostr · March 24, 2002

JP I don't know about you but when a calf hits the ground and it is cold and windy or rainning like crazy I just love the look on those calfs faces it's like "can I go back to where I was?" You know the look "is this what the world is like?"

What I really hate are the dumb ones that are too stupid to learn how to nurse. The one that we pulled since it was backwards is that way, we're thinking it was oxygen deprived and lost some brain function since it just can't learn to suck. Hopefully this one will come around, sometimes he'll do it, other times he won't. Really frustrates a guy when this happens.

Jpshostr · April 1, 2002

I think I have this picture thing straightened around now.

Here is one of my cows with her newborn calf. This is the one that came backwards and we had to pull. You can tell just from this picture that she is very protective of her offspring, the sight of this just scares both my dad and I. No bluff at all in her, she'd come after you if given the chance. Paco, care to mess with her?