So, my dad typically buys what we call "skinny heiferettes" in the fall to fatten up over the winter and sell in the spring. The buying price of these skinny cows determines whether or not you make any money on them, so we tell our cattle buyer to be pretty careful with the cost. So, a lot of times he brings over a few head at a time, leftovers from other loads he purchased and whatnot.

Sometimes, we get a couple crappy animals out of the deal. We did this year. We had two smaller framed heiferettes that were super wild. So wild that when they saw you coming a few hundred yards out, they would run to the far corner of the corrals and weigh their chances of success in vaulting over the fence. Expecting that they were standard nervous range cows, we added them to the feedlot to put a few pounds on them.

Little did we know. Two days ago, our neighbor, who was checking out our livestock scale, ran up to the house and said one of or heiferettes had calved and had pushed out her uterus. I, having no experience with this, asked if we needed the vet, to which our neighbor responded we indeed needed the vet.

We called the vet while heading out to the feedlot. We set up the gates to the corrals to run the cow from the feedlot into the corrals. The cow was out in the pasture connected to the feedlot (we have now adopted the practice of giving them a lot more room to loaf and walk around), and when we got there, I discovered that this was one of those two insane heiferettes that runs at the drop of a hat. She had a huge calf sitting next to her with part of the placenta still on it.

She jumped up when we got slightly close to her and proceeded to run, her uterus bouncing off her hooves and twisting around in the dirt. Neither my neighbor (he has over 300 head of mother cows) nor I were inexperienced in trying to calmly move cows, but this heiferette wasn't having it. Her level of excitement was peaked and she was doing her best to kill herself.

We tried taking her calf into the corrals with her only slightly showing interest at the movement. We ended up getting her into the feedlot first, then she decided she wasn't being chased anymore and she tried to run over my neighbor. Thankfully, he recognized the look and anticipated her attempt, narrowly escaping being stomped into the ground by the enraged cow.

About that time, the vet showed up. He took one look at the battered uterus and said he could put it in, but that's about when they usually die. Regardless of the fact that she was refusing to be moved into the corrals, we had no shred of remaining hope that she would make it.

The vet left. As I was choking back the tears while I was walking towards the feedlot with my gun, the vet called me to tell me that, though it's a long shot, sometimes the blood vessels in the uterus will tear in such a way that they stop bleeding and the cow survives. He had seen it once. He said to call him if she's still alive in 24 hours.

I diverted from my mission and carried the huge bull calf into the corrals and proceeded to bottle feed him colostrum and milk replacer. He's doing well and we're looking for a buyer. I would love to keep him, but I don't have time to feed a bottle calf three times a day with all I have going on this year.

Unfortunately, his mother passed away some time last night. Even though she was pretty insane and tried to run over our friend, it still always hurts to lose a cow.

Norman, the Orphan

Stuff Happens, Again