Her calf was stillborn. But she didn't know it. My wife and I found the mother cow partially laying on her dead calf. I wasn't upset that the calf was dead; I could see that it was missing some hair; indicating it had died in the womb. I wasn't upset that there was another newborn standing nearby. What upset me was when I saw the newborn approach the distraught mother, who then promptly stood up and violently head-butted the newborn up and away from her. I could hear his bones clatter on the frozen ground when he landed.

The small newborn was her own calf as well. He was a twin. But she had rejected him and had accepted her stillborn calf instead. And, like some cows tend to do, she was aggressively defending her udder for the calf she had accepted.

I picked up the muddy and straw-smeared newborn before the mother had another chance to send him airborne, and carried him the 100 yards or so to the corrals. I then found a length of rope and went back out to the field. I wasn't sure if the upset mother would try to headbutt me as well, so I put on my big boy pants and ran her off a few feet so I could tie the rope to the dead calf's ankles.

Then, I dragged the stillborn calf into the corrals with the upset mother trailing close behind who was clearly excited that her (dead) calf was moving. Then, a first for me, I took the stillborn calf, and skinned most of the hide off its back. I made a jacket for the still alive newborn, and tied it to him with some bale twine.

Tiny Tim, wearing the “jacket” of his stillborn twin.

It was interesting to me to watch what happened when I released the newborn back in with his mother, wearing the “jacket” I made from his stillborn sibling's hide. You could almost watch the wheels turning in the cow's head, trying to decide if this calf was hers. She would lick it, then smell it, then look around, then lick it, then smell it, then look around. This went on for about ten minutes. She was letting the calf try to nurse, but he wasn't really getting it as quickly as other calves. I think he might have been poisoned a little by the stillborn twin he was sharing a womb with, and he was also beat up a bit from his formerly upset mother, so I helped him out a bit. We put her in a squeeze chute and I helped him get latched, so the little guy had breakfast.

Tiny Tim being helped out for his first feeding.

The mother cow accepted the newborn and allowed him to nurse. The small calf continued to have some health issues due to his rough start, but we got him through it (fun fact: the Pepto Bismol they use on humans can be used on calves!) and he's doing well now.

He's not so tiny anymore, he's probably 400-500 lb now, and he's doing very well. I named him Tiny Tim.

Thanks for reading. If you're struggling with life today, at least your mother wasn't headbutting you into frozen ground the day you were born and you had to wear your sibling's skin for your mother to let you nurse. #perspective

I'm just kidding. If you're having a rough day, go be vulnerable with someone and tell them you're struggling.

The Story of Tiny Tim