Category: Cows

So with this cow walking up and down the fence, I figured the only thing to do was to take a section of fence down and give her a hole to walk through. Fortunately, part of the fencing was board fence so with the right tools, it’s not too bad to disassemble and reassemble.

I left Spork to keep an eye on the cow and high tailed it back to the farm to grab hammer, nails, crow bar, and the nail puller. When I got back, the cow was still pacing. We had about 1.5 minutes on each lap of the pacing so I immediately went to work on pulling boards, trying to open a hole before she got back. I’d made it about 50% of the way when she showed back up. Before she got remotely close she decided she didn’t like what we were doing and turned and headed off through the neighbors back yard and towards Old Stage Road, about a mile away.

Spork and I took off to head her off, which she took as a sign that she should run instead of walk. With Spork running I jumped in the truck and speed backed (with a trailer) down the curvy dirt road. I met up with Spork and the cow as we entered Percy Johnson’s property. You may remember Percy, his farm played a role in the original Ninja Cow story. We walked the cow around, in and out of his paddocks till the cow noticed the horses in one area. She thought maybe they would be friendly so she headed over to them.

That gave us a chance to finally get her turned back around and walking back towards the original paddock. With some encouragement, we finally got her back to pacing the paddock, trying to find a way in again. I went back to tearing off boards as fast as I could and after her walking a couple more laps, I had a hole big enough for her to walk through, which on the next lap, she did. Phew!

However, that wasn’t the end of the story, unfortunately. But that will be for the next post.

Sunday Spork and I were running the farm. Step one is always to feed the cows first as this greatly reduces the chance of bloat. The cows are at the neighbors so I loaded up the trailer with food, picked up Spork, and headed over. We’d gotten an early start, the day was crisp and cool, and things were going great. With Sporks help we unloaded the produce quickly and loaded back up to head back to the farm. Only 7 paddocks worth of pigs to feed and we’d have everyone fed for the day. Plus Miguel and Adam had pre-loaded our bins for us so most of our work was done. As we pulled away from the cows I was already planning what I’d be doing the rest of the day after we finished feeding the pigs.

That’s when I saw a cow out. Our neighbors setup is two separate 6 acre pastures. We had moved the cows from the first 6 acres to the second last week. What I saw was a cow trying to get back into the first pasture, walking up and down the fence in the neighbors yard.

“Maybe it’s not my cow.”

Upon closer look, I recognized the ear tag as one of mine. I thought maybe she’d been left in the paddock when we moved everyone else and when she found out she was alone, she’d jumped the fence but couldn’t find her way to the other cows. We followed her into the woods and as she went by Spork I asked him what her number was. #33 he responded. Weird. 33 is a good cow and hasn’t caused any problems. After looking the pasture over, we realized there was no way to get the cow back in as the fencing was completely secure. What to do?

That will be the next post.

Back in July I noted that #25 had had a new little calf, #56. This calf received all the normal care we offer, which frankly isn’t that much. The moms do the work of raising the calves unless there is a problem. We had noted a couple of issues with this pair though.

1. #25 would let other calves nurse her even though they were not her calves. She made no effort to kick other calves off as she should but #56 was nursing as well..

2. #56 seemed pretty lazy. We sometimes had to move him to the next paddock where the other calves would run in on their own.

It seemed that while his peers were doing well, #56 wasn’t thriving however when I left to go out of town last Sunday, he was doing fine. When I got home Friday, we moved the cows and noted that #56 wasn’t with the rest of the cows. His mother was at the front of the line apparently oblivious to his absence so we went into the woods to look for him. I found him in the shade, laying down and looking bedraggled. His breathing appeared somewhat labored and he was definitely weak. My immediate thought was dehydration, probably from not nursing mom.

We went ahead and moved the other cows into the new paddock, keeping mom and two accidentally kept calves with #56 in the old paddock. This would help with the competing calves nursing and give this guy a chance. Mom was quite distraught, calling for the cows in the other paddock and not seemingly very worried about her calf still in the paddock. The two extra calves thought this was a grand adventure and had lots of fun being out from under Uno (mom number 1) and Sprinkles (mom number 2’s) thumb. The mom’s standing at the corner of the new pasture hollering for their calves were not nearly as pleased.

With everyone sorted out, we tried to let the calf nurse and #25 stood there for a minute to give him a chance but he would not nurse.

I then took Pedialite in a bottle and tried to get him to nurse. He drank a bit but no much. Then I switched to Pedialite in a syringe and was able to get about 150ccs in him. I gave him a break and then came back in about 1.5 hours. I got another 120ccs in him then another break, then I was able to get about 160ccs in him. During this time I also gave him a shot of 1cc of Banamine to help him feel better. All the while he was looking pretty bad. I went to lunch to give him time for a break and for the medicine and fluids to do what they could.

Immediately after lunch I came back and found that the little calf had passed away.

In reflection, this calf had not been strong since he was born and his mother nursing anyone who came by as opposed to kicking them off as she should certainly didn’t help him. This is the second calf that #25 had lost and that’s 2 for 2. She is a purchased cow, full blooded Angus. Her sister died on me last year. I think it’s safe to say that we have a bad bloodline here. #25 will be coming to a freezer near you as soon as I can arrange the processor and the space in the freezer.

“Love your children, forgive your enemies. Do neither for your cows.”

Every time I don’t follow that advice I’m shown it was correct. Had I culled #25 when she lost that first calf, her replacement would already be calving a healthy calf. It’s one strike and your out around here.

The post I wrote yesterday was double the length a post on the internet is supposed to be so I decided to put this part in a separate post.

If you recall, #44 showed signs of bloat. But when we treated him for bloat, we got this instead.

Instead of blowing off a bunch of air as is normal, he blew out breakfast and foam. Even thought we treated him with all we and the vet knew to do, the swelling in his rumen never really went down even after he seemingly returned to normal. The vet said there really wasn’t much we could do for him other than what we’d done. Now that we’d decided to process him we could take our time and look around to try to find the source of the problem. I’m not a doctor or a vet but I’ve seen healthy and normal organs enough times so I know what they look like. So what to look for? Maybe a twisted gut? Maybe some sort of infection? (which would mean tossing the meat.)

When I got inside, I found that his rumen had grown into the wall of his abdominal cavity and attached itself. It appeared to have been that way for a long time, possibly a birth defect? There was no redness or internal swelling visible. The attached rumen appeared to be causing digestive problems and probably some pain. There certainly didn’t appear to be any fix for the problem so it validated our decision to put him down which was a relief. Life and death decisions are hard enough without also being wrong.

Just another day on the farm.

I’ve previously written about #44 and the trouble we’ve been having with him. Despite all the work done to him and all the consultations with the vet, things just didn’t work out. Miguel and I both separately noticed that he was laying down and both met in the barn yard to go look at him. I grabbed my doctor bag thinking maybe the trocar in him was blocked and he’d be ok if I could clear it but when we got to him we found that he was just feeling poorly and there wasn’t much to be done. We had the choice of trying to treat him again or putting him down. If we treated him again, then most likely he’d end up getting buried because we’d have to give him drugs which would make the meat unusable. If we put him down we’d be able to use the meat and there really wasn’t much we could do for him anyway. It sounds more callous than it was but that’s the short version of the decision process.

Once we decided we’d be putting him down, things quickly moved into getting ready. The last time we processed a cow on farm, it was the Ninja Cow so it had been a little while. Of course we process pigs relatively often and it’s not all that different, just bigger and messier.

After a humane stun shot to the head with a .44 (my ears are still ringing), we quickly hoisted him up with the tractor and bled him out. A quick trip back to the barn and we went to work. It took about three hours to go from cow on the hoof to quarters hanging in the walk-in cooler. A week of aging in the cooler and then it then took another few hours to go from quarters to cuts of meat. Any real butchers are probably laughing at the time it takes us but we do everything with a couple of knives and a hand meat saw. We are slow but we get it done.

Yes, this is the Gator you take your tours in. I always call this Gator “the clean Gator” when I refer to it. If you thought that was odd, now you see why. We only haul people and meat in this Gator and keep the bed clean for times just like this.

I saved a few ribeyes for our freezer as that’s the steak I prefer most. Most of the meat was cut up and given to our various friends at the farmer’s market.

They routinely look after us with all the produce they send our way. Occasionally we try to look after them with some complimentary meat.

Lastly, I called one of our customers and asked if he could come by and get some ribs (the picture above is actually the good morning picture I sent him). Fortunately he was available and stopped right by. This customer is one who is responsible for the food porn posts that I’ve been posting. I knew I’d get some good pics back if I gave him some ribs.

I was right. See below.

It is tough to look a cow in the eye and put it down, especially when you’ve done all you can to save it and it hasn’t worked. It’s hard and messy work to butcher your own cow, handle the heavy primal cuts, clean up all the blood, etc. But knowing that cow is no longer hurting, and knowing our customers are happy makes all the work worthwhile.

When I posted that #25 had her new calf, I was out of town in the land of no Gs (no 4G LTE). In struggling to get the post up, I completely missed that I’d not posted the pic of the calf himself. I’m here to rectify that. I went back to the post and attached the picture that should have been there so you can go there and see the calf only minutes old. If clicking on that link is too much trouble, then you can look here at what I saw Sunday before the whole fiasco with #44 started.

When I was moving the cows Sunday I of course looked for our newest little calf. I’d not seen him because I was out of town and I wanted to see him. After looking around, I didn’t see him anywhere! Not to worry, calves are shorter than our temporary hot wire and routinely walk under and find a nice spot to lie down out of the way. But usually I’d see him by now. Then I found this.

You can see the paddock wire in the back ground and a patch of Johnson grass in the center of the picture. The cows are all on the other side of the wire. You can also see a little patch of black and a yellow ear tag in the center of the Johnson grass.

Hiding in the tall grass is a wonderful thing for new born calves. It keeps them out of the way of the big cows, and out of sight of predators. It’s always a sign of a good mother. We don’t have any predators but it’s a sign of good genetics in the calf as well. This calf is the son of Benjamin our old bull and it’s good to see his progeny still have it.

This is a little closer, and cuter view, of this new born calf. He stayed still and watched me intently. As soon as I got close enough to touch him he jumped up and ran to momma. Very cute.

So last time we had #44 in the head gate, Dustin and I had performed some home surgery and we’d just installed a brand new trocar to relieve the bloat from this cow. At this point in the story we are expecting a big release of air and to be heroes deserving of smooches from adoring women (after a shower of course).

Instead, what we received was this.

There was definitely air in there, but we received it via a foamy grassy mess that clogged every two seconds. Dustin took to cleaning out the trocar routinely while I tried to figure out what to do. Every once in a while we’d get a blast of air only but it would only last a second before reverting to this again. With constant attention we were keeping the cow from bloating further but weren’t really causing the relief we were accustomed to.

We worked on #44 for about 30 minutes and weren’t getting anywhere. Usually when I install a trocar I put it on the roundest part of the distended rumen. In looking at where I’d put this one, I thought maybe I’d installed it too low. I hated to do it but I removed the trocar and installed it about 4 inches higher. This meant another home surgery. The end result, same thing. At this point I called the vet. I confessed all my sins and told him exactly what had been going on all morning. His response was we’d done everything correctly and we’d done all we could for the cow. Best thing to do was put him in the barn and keep an eye on him. If what we’d done hadn’t fixed him, nothing the vet could do would do any better. #44 is under observation in the hospital barn and is doing well so far but he still doesn’t appear normal at this time as he still has a distention in his belly. We are keeping an eye on him and will update as things progress.

Yesterday morning, as is normal on Sundays, I ran the farm by myself. I was extra by myself because normally I have Spork with me to help out but after being on vacation for a week at the beach he came home and immediately left to go stay with Grandma. No problem, I can get it done.

I started my morning about 2am because, well because. I got a lot done in my office, cleaning up and reorganizing because I’m setting my gunsmithing area back up to get a little work done. When the sun finally came up, I went out to move the cows and noticed that one of the cows looked like he might have bloat. I went ahead and moved everybody and started feeding the pigs. After about an hour I went back down and checked on him again and sure enough he looked even more bloated. Sigh, I guess I’ll add treating this cow to the list of things I have to do today. I built a corral lane out of temporary wire and grabbed my neighbor Dustin to help me move the cows into the barn yard and through the corral. We walked everyone in, except our sick cow who decided to jump the fence (must not feel too bad) and go for a run out into the open pasture. Everyone else was in the barn yard so we quickly sorted him back out and got him in with the rest of the group. A bit of work and we had him in the head gate.

This was Dustin’s first time treating for bloat so it was interesting for him to see what you do. I of course am the grizzled farmer/vet so I’m telling him what to do and how it works. After some quick home surgery I popped in the shiny new trocar and viol…. What the heck is that?!

Find out what went wrong in the next post

Normally when our cows have calves, they always have them at night or when we are not around. We go out to check on the cows and viola! There is a new calf. Today, #25 decided to have her calf right when we were there.

While it was nice of her to have her calf with us around, our actual involvement wasn’t any different. Make sure the calf is ok, is nursing, has been tagged and banded, and that is it.

#25 has been pregnant for what seems like forever and if you’ve been on a tour in the past few months, I’ve pointed her out as being huge and overdue. She wasn’t really overdue, we just didn’t know what her due date was and she was HUGE so we figured she was due any time now, for a couple of months. I’m glad she finally had her calf and that everything is ok.