February 19, 2005

. Yesterday when I checked my heifers one of my new simmentals was trying to calve so I set down close by to keep an eye on her. She was a little nervous, but finally I got a good look at her and figured out she was trying to deliver breech. All I could see was a tail. Not being in the cattle business so long I thought I better look up the odds of her delivering her own baby. A quick search on the internet told me I better call the Vet. I love this old Vet... and He remembers everything about our place. He said for me to get her up in my corral.. ( My squeeze chute is at our Cousin's for a little welding - and I bought this chute from this Vet) . The Vet quickly haltered the heifer and gave her an epidural. He had to turn the calf, and He mentioned before he started that odds were against a live birth. He was right... We lost the calf...

My next thought was I wish I could "graft" one of my bottle calves on this heifer.. So I skinned the dead calf , and wrapped the skin around the bottle calf... I also used a little of the dead calves' amniotic fluid (or whatever you call it) and rubbed it on the bottle calf. Well, I don't think this is going to work either.. The bottle calf was interested but the first time calving heifer smelled around but didn't take to the calf too well. If the heifer was gentler I would have tried to milk her and cover the calf with mother's milk... I've heard that works sometimes...

So plan A and B didn't work... Back to the drawing board. Feeding the bottle calf by hand and planning how to get the heifer bred back quickly. We just sent the borrowed bull back to the cousin's. Hmmmm..... Maybe AI in a month or two?

My best friend brought back the bottle lambs she took to school with her in the city for a couple of weeks. I had named the puny babies she took Slim and Skinny. She brought them back to me fattened up and renamed Jasper and Sheba. I wasn't even sure they were the same babies. She even bathed them before she took them to school. Of Course, I redid the "Mary had a Little Lamb" poem , using her name... She said they played with the children at recess..

My Hubby is asking about breakfast.... I am going the French toast route this morning I think... His knee is healing slowly.