I Screwed Up, and She Almost Died

Sally is easily one of my favorite cows. I bought her as a heifer from one of our local farmers when she was about a year old. She’s all black, but with a white face and black circles around her eyes. When younger, she was the one who would be into everything, cause trouble, and was the one heifer I had observed easily vaulting over our one-wire fence to get into the silage pile, with only her tail touching the wire after she cleared it.

Now, with about six years under her belt, Sally is one of my calmest, nicest, and best mother cows. She’s not super aggressive towards other baby calves looking for a willing udder, but she takes very good care of her own calf. This year was no exception.

She has always had a calf with some white on it’s face, so I’m assuming that genetic trait must be a dominant one. This year was no exception. Her calves always look a little similar to her, but this year, her newborn heifer was a spitting image of her. Black, white faces, and black surrounding her eyes. We named her calf “Tulip”.

Tulip was a bit larger than my average calf size, but she wasn’t huge. Well not huge enough that I would notice, but I didn’t really bother inspecting her as much as I do other calves because, well, Sally. Sally is a great mother, has a good udder (meaning it’s got small to medium “teets” and she has plenty of milk), and is a veteran of calving, so I don’t really worry about her too much. Day 1.

I noticed something was wrong two days after Tulip was born. A day after she was born, I was checking the cows and found she had walked under an electric wire into an area right next to the cows that has tall grass, and a perfect area for sleepy newborns. Sally was looking for her, so I picked Tulip up and put her back in the pasture with Sally. That was later in the day that she was born. She looked a little humped up, but newborns often do, so I didn’t think twice about it. The odd thing was that she didn’t immediately go to nursing, she just laid down, like she was tired. I figured she was just tired. Day 2.

The next day, I was walking through the cows to check on everybody and noticed that Tulip didn’t want to get up when I got near her. Most calves are at least a little bit wary and will start when I get within their territorial bubble. Tulip didn’t. She just sat there, looking at me, but wouldn’t get up. So, as any cow guy would do, I poked and prodded her to encourage her to get up. She did, finally, get up, but her back end (read, “rear legs”) was a little more wobbly than I expected, and she seemed to be low on energy.

I checked her backside. Newborn calves usually have a first poop that is dark green, really sticky, and really stinky. Her backside looked clean as a whistle, and she looked empty. And humped up, like her stomach hurt a little. I checked her eyes, and she looked slightly dehydrated, but she didn’t have scours (aka “the runs”).

I stuck my finger in her mouth. She didn’t fight me at all, and the normal “sucking” reflex that you find in healthy calves was barely there, if at all. Sally was standing by, watching me the whole time, and mooing at her calf. Sally had milk literally squirting out of her udder by this time, indicating the calf had not nursed at all, or at least not for quite some time.

I went back to the house, mixed up a bottle of cow colostrum (basically dehydrated cow milk with a very high fat content), and took it out to Tulip. She weakly drank maybe a pint of it, not very much. A newborn calf can easily consumer two quarts of milk twice a day. I decided to leave her alone for a bit, and went back to the house.

Later that day, I continued to check on Tulip to see if there was any change. She was still lethargic and largely unresponsive. A couple hours after my first attempt at bottle feeding, I got the stomach tube kit, warmed up the remaining colostrum and my wife, Sulema, and I went out to see Tulip once again.

Stomach tubing is sort of the nuclear option when it comes to calves. If a calf won’t nurse, and won’t even suck from a bottle when forced to (you have to corner them, get their butts against something so they can’t back away, and have their bodies between your knees), that calf is in trouble. She was laying down when we found her again (as usual), and so I straddled her and sat down, trying to keep my weight off her as much as possible, but still keeping her from getting up and getting away. I first tried the bottle. The following video shows a part of that attempt. She fought me a little but, but wouldn’t suck from the bottle, despite having nothing else going on and no other choice.

So, I turned to the stomach tube option. I dipped the stomach tube into the colostrum to make it slide slightly easier, straightened Tulip’s neck, stuck my finger in her mouth to pull her tongue straight, and then inserted the tube (do not do this without having someone show you how to do it; you can insert it into their windpipe and kill them almost immediately!!!) into her throat and, after a little gentle repositioning, down into her stomach. I then had Sulema hold the empty liquid bag close to my ear so I could hear the stomach gurgling. If you hear breathing, you got the tube into the lungs!

It appeared I got the stomach tube properly positioned, so Sulema poured the colostrum into the stomach tube bag, and Tulip then got what was, I know now, her first meal. Afterwards, I got her up, and she basically stood there for a long minute and seemed pretty in shock from the whole deal. I can’t say I blame her. She still looked humped up, but her stomach looked a little fuller, which gave me a small measure of comfort. After saying a prayer over her, we left her alone, and I went to bed for some relatively fitful sleep. Day 3.

The next morning, I half expected to see Tulip had passed away in the night, but she was laying down not far from where we stomach tubed her, looking very lethargic, and mostly staring off into space. She was only responsive when I poked her, but she didn’t attempt to get up. I went back to the house, mixed up a bottle of milk replacer, took it out to Tulip, and she sucked about a small pint from the bottle. I had brought the stomach tube kit with me, so I repeated the previous days actions, and gave her the whole bottle, 2 quarts of milk.

Sally was standing by, mooing at her baby the entire time. I got Tulip up again after her ordeal, and she just stood on wobbly legs by her mother, weakly staring off into the distance. I did it again later that evening with another 2 quarts of milk. Very little change in Tulip that I could see, but I thought she looked slightly more aware of her surroundings, but my mind was probably playing tricks on me. Day 4.

I don’t like using antibiotics, and I will typically not use them unless I’m sure an animal cannot get over an infection by themselves, but the next morning, I was sure Tulip wasn’t going to last the day. I gave her a shot of LA-300 just in case she had some lingering infection that may be bringing her down. I stomach tubed another 2 quarts of milk replacer into her late that morning when I gave her the shot. Later that day, got about a pint of a witches brew of warm water, molasses, salt, and beef consomme soup as a home brewed electrolyte solution into Tulip via stomach tubing before she started coughing it up. I stopped the flow and pulled the tube. Late that evening, I mixed up another bag of colostrum and took it out to Tulip. I got about half of it into her until her thrashing made me spill the rest of it. I got what I could into her, but, feeling defeated, went back to the house, fully expecting not to see Tulip alive the next day. Day 5.

The next morning, we had to feed cows earlier than normal, sort out some cull animals from my small herd of yearlings, and get them loaded up for my dad to take to auction.

As I was getting the mixer ready to load feed, I looked into the pen and saw this.

Later that day, I observed Tulip draining one of Sally’s quarters pretty aggressively, so I think she’s out of the woods. She spent the entire day acting like a newborn calf should; exploring, running, jumping, with the occasional moo when she jumped into an electric wire. She’s from good stock! I definitely was very encouraged to see her acting like she was in the above video, as you can probably hear my voice break a bit.

Moral of the story: Never, Ever, Give Up.

“Because there are roses to smell, electric fences to touch, and udders to nurse.”

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-Kenny and Sulema