How Bizarre!

In my last post I mentioned that calves were coming fast on Sunday.  That continued after I posted.  R went to a birthday party so M and I were on cow duty for the evening.  M went to check just before dark and later I went to help him put a heifer in a pen where we could watch her closely on the cow cam.  She was a bit agitated but was slowly progressing.  He decided to go check on her, and I was watching the cow cam.  As he was on the way over, she was pushing the calf out but was too close to the fence and literally pushed the calf right through a panel.  I kept willing her to move before that happened, but she didn't.  Then when the calf was half out of her she decided to get up.  When she did that the calf was ripped out of the panel but was still in her.  She made a half lap around the pen before it fell out.  Not good!  M was there shortly after and made sure the calf was alive, but he hadn't see what had happened and didn't want to get her any more worked up by getting into the pen.  Throughout the night I kept looking to see if the calf was up and never did see it up but did see that it was moved to different spots in the pen.

Just before I went to bed and after R had gotten home I checked the cameras one more time and noticed a heifer lying in an unnatural position in the middle of the corral.  About 30 seconds later our phone rang with R calling to tell M that a heifer was dead.   M had been there not an hour before and nothing was in distress or even lying down at that time so it appeared to be a sudden death.  Very strange.

I had to go to work in town on Monday so didn't help with chores.  M called to let me know that the calf from the night before did not come through unscathed.  It has a broken leg.  At first he thought it was just near the foot but later determined that it is broken high in the front leg.  M tried to immobilize it a bit, but the break is in a difficult spot.  This morning we put the cow in the head gate and helped the calf stand and nurse and supplemented with a bottle.  It's going to need all its strength to heal and hopefully survive.

Also yesterday they discovered a calf with a back leg bent forward and it's backside pushed to the side.  It was apparently in the womb like that, poor thing--and poor cow trying to give birth to it like that.  We're not sure what we're going to do with that one, but M says we're not going to let it starve to death so we gave it a bottle also.

K and Sawyer and a friend and her little girl came out today to see the calves.  I told M they'd think they were at a freak show!  We didn't show them the deformed one and at least the little girls could pet the one with the broken leg since it wasn't going anywhere fast.  It has now been named "Baby Bolt".  Sawyer squealed with excitement when she saw the cows and calves and petted Bolt.  Maybe she'll be our little cowgirl.  She certainly isn't afraid of anything!