We got back from our lovely overseas trip and were slammed by bugs…First Influenza A for the whole family and then a cherry-on-top dose of pneumonia especially for the pregnant lady. Man Alive I can’t remember feeling so average in years.
The night I returned exhausted from a 6 hour A and E visit with Charlie, Mitch called to say one of the heifers was calving with a stuck calf. Fucking Fabulous. I swear there is something sinister at play out there every now and again which decides to just pummel you while you’re down. We weren’t due to calve for another week, but no doubt the cow sensed we were at a low ebb and thought “Now’s the time for me to go for it”. There was nothing I felt like doing less than going out at 10pm to calve a cow. For starters, I can’t even remember the last time I had to calve a cow, so would have to dredge up some vague knowledge from back in the day assisting Dad. And because we have had a straight run of two seasons with no assisted calvings, we had become blasé and opted to calve the heifers in a far-off paddock from the yards. Idiots.
I headed out the door wearing about 30 layers of clothing and found her in the furthest end of the paddock. She was lying down with what looked to my untrained eye like a stuck head and one leg out the back end. After a few laps of the paddock she agreed to cooperate and be cut out from the rest of her doting Angus sisters, and we started a slow trip up the lane to the yards. I called my sister Nina for a pep talk on the way. Very fortunately for us and most unfortunately for Nina she is a vet. We regularly call her to get her expertise on a situation…She must roll her eyes and think ‘what does she want now’ as she sees a call coming through from me late at night.
Eventually I met Mitch at the yards and we ran the cow into the crush, popping the steel bar in behind to stop her backing up or kicking. I fetched the calving jack, hoping not to need it, and some twine to loop around the calf’s legs. Nina had described a method for tying twine behind the head and I was dubious at best as to whether I had grasped the concept. This was to be Mitch’s first calving experience. Comforting! Two amateurs at work.
The calf looked big. The head was out with a large swollen tongue. I reached in and felt one large front hoof, then the other, all trying to come at once. Grasping a hold of one leg, I tried to pull it to straighten and the calf helped by tucking it firmly back inside. We made slip knots with the twine and I fumbled around, eventually managing to hook them over pulling points on the calf’s legs. We straightened one leg and Mitch kept tension on the rope while I retrieved the other one. Then he steadily pulled the legs back and down as I worked on the head. Thankfully the heifer decided to help. It was bloody hard work! I’m sure the swearing helped…finally with a solid satisfying sucking noise, the shoulders popped out. We worked the rest of the body out and the whopper bull calf dropped to the ground. It was less than lively at best, so we got to work rubbing its slick body down with some grotty towels from home. Eventually we’d done all we could and we put the calf down on an old blanket, let the heifer out and went home. It didn’t look hopeful.
That night was a shocker. Charlie was up half the night, feverish with Influenza A and I was starting to get the fever sweats. We were all absolutely buggered by the morning. Eventually the guilty thought of the calf dragged me out of bed. He was still alive but weaker and clearly hadn’t stood up yet. On checking our supplies, I realised we were totally unprepared for Spring with no milk powder or colostrum. Awesome. PGG wouldn’t be open as it was a Saturday, and I didn’t have the will to drive to Farmlands in Ashburton. Mitch ran the unimpressed heifer back into the crush and I managed to hand milk her without getting my arms broken which was highly pleasing. Another call to Nina regarding tube feeding technique when you don’t have a calf tube! Made a makeshift one from an old drench knapsack. Tube fed the calf three times over a few hours, with whatever I could milk from its Mama. Went home to bed.
In the afternoon the calf was dead. I felt relieved; it just added to the overall bleak mood.
The overwhelming sense was one of mild panic that I was not at all ready for Spring. The season when you need to be on your game on the farm was upon us and I was operating below par.
Oh shit.