This winter has been a nightmare for everyone, but more so for those who are calving out in this weather.
We all have a pretty good understanding of what it must be like, but not really because we aren't experiencing it. We aren't in the thick of it. We aren't exhausted. We aren't struggling hourly with the elements of the weather, the freezing wind, the enormous drifts, or the temperamental cow. We aren't fighting for the life of a calf or it's mother. We aren't frozen to the bone after walking a mile and a half in below zero weather to move a cow to the shed, only to lose her.
Finding a rancher in the house to interview was difficult because they are never in the house or if they are they're so tired they really don't want to talk about how their calving operation is going or are heading out to check on them again.
"Animal husbandry is really important to me", said Larry Bitz. Every rancher cares deeply about their livestock. "Kristen Gasvoda said, "I really like the mommas. I know our cows and care about them. They'll walk over to me to say, 'hey, remember me." Kristen says they only started calving the first of March. They expect to lose a few calves every year, but this year has been brutal.
Murphy's law is lived out during calving season, "whatever can go wrong-will! On a normal year most ranches lose 2-4 calves during the calving season. This season the numbers have been higher. Dana Darlington says they have lost some due to the icy conditions. They have three cameras in the barn and they have already paid for themselves. With the conditions, the way they are Dana and Lisa check on the animals every 1 ½ hours. In the last four days, his longest stretch of sleep was 3 ½ hours.
hours. As we were talking he was watching the camera's and had to hang up and go check on one as she went down. Rusty Sparks answered the phone in the barn, but he was working on a two year olds and couldn't talk.
Cows are resilient animals, but when calving in these kind of conditions, where the temperature and the wind-chill can freeze a calf quickly, getting them into shelter before the calf is born is important. Even getting them into the calving shed does not guarantee the calf will live. This year there has been a number of frozen feet, ear, tails which is an indication of course that the calf needs to be warmed up immediately if they hope to save the calf at all. Yes, we've all had our difficulty this winter, but what if your income depended on you making sure the herd was safe, fed, and protected. What if your job was to be in the weather fighting the elements on any hourly basis seven days a week straight for a month or so depending on the size of your herd. In a family ranch operation that means mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, older child, all taking turns checking the cows. This winter there have been numerous days when every hand was needed to get them to safety, to bring a calf into the warming pen. If labor is normal, it is better to leave a cow alone, but after approximately 30 minutes when it becomes apparent that things are not progressing, the rancher must step in and help. If a long plastic gloves are available they will wear them, but often they need to place their own arm into the birth canal to determine the size and position of the calf. A normal birth is front feet and head first. A calf can be totally in the wrong position inside including a breach, or upside down, or legs folded beneath them. The rancher will try move the calf to a better placement before they attach a chain to the leg of the calf prior to pulling them out. Then there is the occasional cow that will need a C-section, or malformed calf. Heifers, first time mothers, have a whole different set of issues on top of that. Heifers account for the majority of calving difficulty and associated calf losses. This is true despite the fact that most heifers are watched more closely, and assisted faster at calving than mature cows.
When the calf finally does arrive, he is soaking wet which is the next crucial time. An attentive mother immediately arises and begins to lick him off with her big, rough tongue. The licking both stimulates the calf and removes the excess moisture. Most calves are up and sucking within a couple of hours, still "wet behind the ears". "A brand-new calf can stand an amazing amount of cold if he has been cleaned up by his mother and has a belly full of milk, but not the brutal weather temperature and winds we have been having. Sometimes the mother doesn't get right up. Without that stimulation from licking, a calf may never take his first breath if the rancher isn't right there to rub down the calf and get them in the warming pen. "Sometimes the cow thinks no more of that new calf than if she had just dumped a pile of manure, wandering away to eat. If it is cold and/or snowy the calf can quickly become hypothermic with his hair still completely soaked in fluid." Sometimes the natural instinct of the calf doesn't take hold and it won't eat.
That's why it is important to get the cow in labor into the calving pen, where it is warm and there is the appropriate equipment. Impossible to help a cow out in the pasture during a blizzard. Calves have been brought into the farm house and placed in the bathtub filled with warm water-Anything to warm up the core of the calf up as quickly as possible. Stimulating a calf with vigorous rubs and drying them with hair dryers hoping they will pull through.
Sometimes you're sure the calf is strong and by all indications they're going to make it. An hour later they're dead. However, there are the times after you've spent hours on a calf and they don't even lift its head and you're sure it is going to die. You leave them dried and warm. You've tried given them a shot of first time milk or colostrum which they must receive within the first two hours of birth. A calf is born without a functioning immune system so it must develop it by receiving the first milk from his mother. When the calf can't suck or the mother cow refuses her baby for a variety of reasons, you must act quickly. The colostrum is sometimes referred to as liquid gold.
My father once brought a calf in the house that was born in the early spring and he was laying in ice water when my dad found him in the middle of the night. All six of us worked and worked on that calf, but eventually my dad told us to go back to bed. I woke up to find the calf standing by my bed staring at me mooing. His soft hooves made funny noises as he walked. There was a celebration in my house that morning, as there is in every ranch house when a calf pulls through.
The amount of snow we have has made it difficult to feed the cows. Trails must be made by plowing out a path so they can eat. And as we all know those trails are soon filled in again by the wind. The rancher is constantly fighting the snow. But when all that snow melts, it's going to create a different set of issues as there will won't be any dry land, and cows will have to be on high ground when it starts flooding and if you aren't through calving you now have the difficulty of being able to even reach your cows enough to bring them in .
The season isn't over, difficult to imagine.
