Since my last post we've had two more adoptions. One night R was pulling a calf from one heifer while another was also calving. That calf was small and frail. R tried to give it a bottle and thought it would last through the night and we could try again, but it was dead by morning. I had heard on the radio that a neighbor had a calf for sale. When M called about it he had already sold it, but later in the day he called back and said he had another set of twins if we wanted one. M went to get it and we had very little trouble getting the new mama to take it.
A couple of days ago M decided to cut the splint off the broken-leg calf and see how it was doing since it was starting to smell. He discovered that the ends of the bone were sticking out an open wound. Very ugly. We cleaned it out, applied some disinfectant and gave it a shot of antibiotic. We tried to wrap it back up again, but the break is so high that we can't really stabilize it enough for him to get up on it so I gave him a bottle for a couple of days. Yesterday R and I kind of made the decision to destroy it because it would never heal, and he knew he'd have to do it because M would never be able to. R got busy and didn't get it done. This morning we had another set of twins so M thought we'd give one to baby Bolt's mother. He's still waffling on what to do with baby Bolt so I gave him another bottle.
I think Bolt's mother is a bit tired of being moved into the barn, out of the barn, back to the barn, but she likes her ground feed so is pretty easy to work with. M was not too optimistic that she'd take to a new calf after having Bolt for a couple of weeks, but we put them together and she didn't fight it. I checked the cow cam a little while ago and the calf was trying to nurse and the cow wasn't fighting it so that's a good sign. I don't think many ranchers try as hard as M, but it's always a shame when a good mother doesn't have a calf. Too bad this one was kind of stupid while giving birth.
We are in full-on farming mode now and everyone has been on the run. Yesterday our brand-new sprayer made it 20 minutes before it broke down. That stressed everyone out because J was ready to switch to peas and that ground needed to be pre-sprayed. We knew the wind was supposed to howl today so it was important to get as much done yesterday as possible. They thought they fixed the problem and it worked for another 30 minutes before it had problems again. They tried something else and it has been working since then. Apparently someone at the factory didn't put something together right. That's been a common and frustrating problem on new equipment lately. As much as we pay for stuff it should work properly!
I was just having my morning tea thinking I'd have the day to myself when M called to see if I was up because we needed to move the water truck for C and get a seed truck for J and feed the cows. R was already on the road to Glasgow with a load of lentils. And, oh yeah, we needed to haul feed to the guy feeding our replacement heifers. We did manage to get home and have lunch, but then R called in a panic because he had a bunch of cows and calves in the yard and needed help. We got that taken care of and proceeded to load feed buckets. We delivered those and came back and picked up J who had moved his tractor and drill and then I got to come home, around 5:00. M is still at it somewhere.
There's rain in the forecast so maybe tomorrow will be a calmer day. I've already made it known that I have a haircut tomorrow afternoon that I am not missing--I'm desperate!
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