Jul. 24, 2003 ~ A mystery
Cheryl Lynn gave birth to a big heifer calf a few days ago, and she's "not right." She doesn't seem to want to nurse, or rather, she kind of wants to, but doesn't seem to get it. Also, one of her eyes is cloudy, and weepy, and her eyes are a little bloodshot. Husband gave her a shot last night, and asked me if I would try to give her a bottle today. This request was met with an outward "Okay," and an inward sigh. It is not especially easy to try to give a calf a bottle. That's an understatement. But I dutifully filled the bottle this morning, and headed out to the back pasture. The herd, seeing me, thought they would get to change pastures, so they all started mooing and heading in my direction. Cheryl Lynn's heifer got up, stretched, and started walking towards the pond. I attributed this to her poor vision, but she seemed very intent on getting where she was going. Along the way, I managed to stop her. After a bit of struggle, she decided that she liked the bottle, liked it a LOT, and she drank greedily. As if she were starving. I kept trying to get her to nurse from the mama, taking the bottle over to the cow, holding it close to her udder, but the calf just didn't seem to get it. She bumped her mama with her head a few times, but then she'd turn around and head in the direction of the pond. I wound up giving her the entire bottle -- she drained it dry. Then she waded out into the pond, lowered her head to the water, and drank. Our last sickly calf had done the same thing... he drank pond water. This may be normal calf behavior, but in the ten years we've had cattle, I've never seen newborn calves drink from the pond, except in these two instances. It makes me think that they are just drinking water and not nursing at all, and this is what keeps them alive, though just barely, when they are ill.
But which came first, the chicken or the egg? Are they sick and dehydrated because they don't nurse, or do they not nurse because they're sick? I called Husband at work to tell him that the baby had taken the bottle, and I mentioned that she had been drinking water, too. He said that he'd seen the calf belly-deep in the water, with her mama, the day she was born. Something clicked in my head. Something. Just a glimmer of an idea. Newborn calves' navels are prone to infection, and if we can, we try to doctor them with medicine. If we don't find the calves right away, they're usually too strong and too fast; they run off before we can get near them. What if... just maybe... these calves, healthy at birth, wade out into the water, and something in the water, bacteria, whatever, infects their navels? Or just the fact that they're drinking water, what if something in it is making them sick? It's unlikely, but it has got me thinking. It's all really just a mystery. If our old vets were still practicing, I'd call them and talk to them about it. I haven't even met the new vets, and I can't imagine just calling to chat. We are broker than broke, robbing Peter to pay Paul, so we don't want to take an animal to the vet unless we absolutely have to. Of course, if this keeps up, we will have no choice.
Yesterday's auction check was better than expected, and it covered the cost of our homeowner's insurance, which I promptly paid. Was feeling pretty good about that, until Husband reminded me that we had hoped to spend that money on square bales of hay. That's the "robbing Peter" part. The insurance was due, and one has to have it. We have hay, enough to last a while longer. Gone are the days when we can buy enough square bales for a year. We'll buy fifty or so at a time, that's it. So the next time we sell a calf, that money will be earmarked for hay.
Sometimes I wonder why we have cows. They give us an agricultural exemption for our property taxes, which is good. They help keep the grass down, which is good. But it just seems like with cows, as with life, there's always something.
This latest something... is a mystery.
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