I pretty much spent my summer becoming an alternative cow vet.

Well, you may have noticed that I have been pretty much MIA for most of the summer. That is partially because I’ve got like 10 hours of mowing a week to do (when I haven’t broken the mower repeatedly – but more on that later), and partially because this summer has put me through an emotional wringer and I haven’t been able to share it until now. As you might assume being on a farm brings me into frequent contact with death so perhaps one would think that I would be immune to the pains of it, but I am most definitely not.

Early this summer Sweetie Pie calved again. What you probably don’t know, because I didn’t tell you, was that her calf from last year (Honey Bunch) died and I couldn’t figure out why. Despite being treated by a veterinarian I felt like I had failed her, that if I had just done something differently or noticed something sooner I could have fixed it.

So, when SP calved and the sweet little heifer was just another red calf I was disappointed. I know. The fact that she looked like everyone else shouldn’t have mattered, but I still wanted a redo, and the fact that she looked nothing like my darling Bunches hurt more than I care to admit.

Long story short, Captain America milked SP for a few days but with the distance between us and his work and haying schedule that wasn’t a good long term plan so we started searching for another bottle calf to put on her (since she makes too much milk for one calf to eat and it can lead to health problems to leave her with that much pressure in her bag). He found a beautiful little Charolais heifer off of a Facebook group, and I instantly fell in love even though the guy who had her mentioned to CA that she was “tenderfooted.”

Tenderfooted, my right buttcheek. When CA brought her home she was a textbook case for joint ill; in all four joints, and her navel. I insisted that we name her Sugar, and SP’s calf Cinnamon. My world revolved around her.

What followed was roughly two months of being told that vets “don’t treat joint ill in calves,” “just euthanize her,” and “I could do something if she was a horse.” Bovine discrimination is STRONG, ya’ll.

So I Googled, and read Plum’s and Merck’s, and when they didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear I read books on alternative treatments and got her an acupuncturist (whose treatment protocol included Chinese herbal medication that actually did A LOT to help her). I borrowed my mom’s therapeutic laser and gave her photon therapy every other day alongside the acupuncture, Chinese herbs, probiotics, astragalus & Echinacea, conventional antibiotics, and milk thistle (to prevent liver damage from the conventional antibiotics). I soaked her in Epsom salt baths. I gave her Reiki. I sang to her while she ate (even when she was eating at 3:30 in the morning, because by God that baby needed me so I was up and cheerful about it). I chased her around with a fan during the hot days and carried sauce pans of water to wherever she was laying. I took a thousand pictures of her beautiful little nose. I drove her hours to try (and fail) to get her treatment, and finally cajoled our regular vet into opening up on of her joints. He was amazed at how bright she was and how good her joints looked despite everything.

I started making plans for how to do bovine physical therapy to help her stand and walk more easily and looking into long term options for arthritis care.

Then at 6:30 one morning she started making a very distressed sound, which was odd because she had never even mooed at me. She started to bloat even before I could get her loaded in my car. I rushed her to the vet, but she was dead before he got there. She either threw a blood clot in her lung or had an abscess burst and died in my lap in the backseat while we sat in the parking lot.

I was, and still am incredibly torn up about it.

About a month later CA called me in a panic because Sweetie Pie was down and he thought she was dying. We hauled water to pour over her to cool her down while the emergency vet was on her way. She had no clue what was wrong with her, but treated her for low blood calcium (milk fever). She couldn’t stand on her own; so mom and dad (bless them!) drove a sling made for lifting horses and cows over at 9 pm on a Friday night (they didn’t get home from that trip until like 2 am). We lifted her up and hung her off the front end loader periodically for about two weeks before she started standing on her own again. We gave her tubes of CMPK, probiotics, antibiotics, and I force fed her baking soda thinking that maybe it was acidosis.

Then about three weeks ago she started having bloody diarrhea. I begged CA to bring her over to my house and I got her some sulfa, more probiotics, keto gel, more CMPK, power punch, different types of wormer, and everything else you could think of to give a dairy cow who was showing signs of either an infection of her digestive tract or ketosis. She got better after two days and I poured the grain and alfalfa hay to her. She ate great for a week and then started feeling sickly again. As of last week I was buying spinach, arugula, and baby kale for her because she acted like everything else was making her nauseated. She passed peacefully on Friday afternoon - laying on a pile of straw in the sunshine.

Her blood work came back Thursday. She had Bovine Leukosis, a disease that upwards of 40% (depending on which study you look at) of dairy cows in the Midwest are infected with. Some are asymptomatic, but when a cow does exhibit symptoms it is fatal. It is also probably what killed Honey Bunch. There is no treatment or prevention available. The only good news is that it is only spread through blood and, in limited instances, milk or perhaps by biting flies(the sources I have read weren’t 100% positive on that). We will be testing to make sure that no one else has it. Fortunately we don’t reuse needles or dehorn, which can spread the disease pretty quickly. (For more information look here.)

Even more fun? The DNA of the virus has been found in human breast cancer tissue. They aren’t positive how it got there yet, but I would expect there to be more studies on it in the next few years. The things they don’t tell you before you go buy a milk cow, huh?

Another fun test came back today. Sweetie was Johne’s disease positive too. That one, again, is fatal in ruminants that exhibit symptoms. Many dairy cows carry it, and it is much easier to spread than the Leukosis. I swear. I’m going to have to set up a go fund me page to be able to test everyone for all of these things. 

I love that cow, but I really, really wish that someone somewhere would have told me about all of this before I got a milk cow. We followed regular protocols for including a new cow in the herd – you know, keep them separate for a few weeks and look for signs of disease. When they don’t show any signs of anything you toss them out in the pasture, and in my case inadvertently introduce the cow version of Typhoid Mary to the herd. 

Going forward I implore you to learn from my mistakes. Make sure that any bottle calves you bring home have had colostrum and watch their temperatures very closely. If they start going up don’t mess around with antibiotics. Call your vet and try some Baytril – or  Excenel. There is a pretty good protocol listed here. You’re going to need a broad spectrum solution, and seriously if you have a vet locally who does Chinese medicine too, the herbs helped Sugar considerably. I can’t say they broke her fever, but about a day and a half after she got them she had a normal temperature for the first time in weeks. 

If you are interested in getting a back yard milk cow please talk to your vet about getting a test for Bovine Leukosis and Johnes disease before you bring your baby home. Many cows are asymptomatic for all of their lives, but if they aren’t it is very likely that they will die before age 10, and in some situations they can pass it along to other healthy ruminants. Forewarned is forearmed. 

Oh, and if you have a Grasshopper mower with the rear discharge NEVER BACK UP. You crinkle the metal like tissue paper and blow grass clippings directly towards the engine. And if you do figure out that a crinkled guard is the problem, don’t put a new on on and then back up AGAIN thinking that it had to be a fluke. It. Is. Not. 

It has been that kind of summer.

Sweetie Pie, the day we brought her home.

Sugar, getting her electropuncture.

Fact (that is actually an opinion): Rabbits are the enlightened spiritual leaders of the animal kingdom.

Sunday I looked over at Captain America and asked him, "What do you think that other couples do on their weekends?" We had spent all day Saturday working on the IL house, and were at the Missouri ranch to  check the chickens and cows when we found Ellie May ready to calve. He shrugged and went back to Googling "how long should a cow be in labor," as I turned back to begin hour three of staring at Ellie May's vulva, wondering if we needed to call a vet, pull the calf, make her a cup of tea, drive her down a bumpy road, or just leave her the hell alone.

I also started wondering if adoption was not perhaps the way to go. Nothing like watching something in labor for several hours to make me want to never have kids. Ouch. Some pain transcends verbal communication. I feel for you, honey.

Long story short, we had to pull the calf. It was a new experience for me, though similar enough to pulling foals (thanks mom!) that we were able to get the job done. The heifer was stillborn - and had probably died a few days before labor started. No wonder Ellie had been in stage two labor for at least five hours. The baby's movement helps to stimulate contractions.

That brings us to three dead calves and fourteen live ones for the year so far, not good odds, but it happens I guess. Let's be honest, nothing but zero losses would be considered good odds.

But that is another thing that helping mom out with foaling a bunch of thoroughbreds has taught me. Sometimes you just have bad runs. It just happens. It is tragic, and horrible; but it is life. We went five years without losing a single mare or foal despite correcting what feels like 100 dystocias; and then in one year we had a foal puncture through the birth canal (thus losing both the mare and baby), one foal break a leg (and have to be put down), one foal whose dystocia couldn't be corrected, and two stillborns. And again, not bad odds when you consider that we were foaling out between fifty and seventy mares a year. But dear God it sucked.

So, while Captain America wasn't due yet, the fact that we hadn't lost a calf or had any problems calving at home for at least ten years makes it seem a little better.

I just wish that that mattered. That I could look at it all as a numbers game. Unfortunately, I can't. I cried for Ellie. I bawled for the heifer that lost one of her first babies last week. She had twins and one of them didn't make it. My heart broke for the momma whose baby was just a little too big, and took a little too long to get out because she calved in between my moving hay at seven pm and my going out to check them at ten the next day.

When those gals look at me like they want me to fix their baby something breaks inside, because I can't. As much as I want to, I can't fix dead.

Heck, I can't even fix the fences half the time. At least not well enough to keep my dang kamikaze calves in. I swear, it is like they don't feel pain. Brats.

So why do it? Why spend all the time and money to curse and cry and have to change plans and break dates and show up at the local farm store wanting to buy field fence only to have the sales guy get snotty when you (a girl) want to buy and install it to keep your a$$hat kamikaze calves from breaking through the vinyl board fencing that the horses live in AGAIN?

Because I can't look at it like a numbers game. I can't look at them and see dollar figures and widgets to be sold.

I look at them and I love them (yes even when they are being a$$hats...). And I personally feel like I owe them that much. I don't have a problem with grocery store carnivores, vegetarians, or vegans. However, when I look at that burger on my plate? I see a cow, and I feel better knowing that that cow was happy. That it had a good life. And that it was loved. If I am going to eat it, I feel that it deserves at least that much consideration. In my mind a little appreciation and respect go a long way.

I read in an animal communication book once that the communicator asked a meat rabbit how it felt about being destined to be dinner. I am paraphrasing the bunnies answer: "I am happy here, with my friends. There is plenty of room and sunshine. We all get eaten. It is our life before then that matters." Word, my fluffy friend. We all get eaten. It IS what happens before we die that matters, after that what do we care who eats us? Does it really matter if it is an earthworm and bacteria, a coyote, or something else? 

Seriously, who knew that bunnies were the enlightened leaders of the animal kingdom?

I can't love every cow. I can't save every calf, but at least I can look at them with respect, and I can make sure that the cows whose lives I touch are as happy as I can make them. If I don't raise them, then someone else will; and I don't and won't know that they will get the respect they deserve.

Plus, I think the desire to kill teenagers is universal. I would be lying if I didn't admit that that helps. I may or may not have spent four hours last week chasing a heifer who broke out of the fence around screaming something about being an "apex predator" and that "I would eat her raw, if she didn't get her butt back in the fence"...

I think we bonded. She's going to be a wonderful mother one day. Ah, the circle of life. *Cue the Lion King music*

Here's hoping that the odds get better ya'll.