It’s a fact of life in a beef cattle operation: At some point after they are weaned, those cute little calves will be sold. We treat some calves like pets by naming them or hand-feeding “treats”—range cube protein pellets. A few may temporarily have to be bottle-fed if there is a cow/calf bonding issue, the cow becomes sick or has a milk-flow deficiency. But the bottom line is the day will come when they are loaded up, trucked to an area feedlot and sold to the owner.

I understand this step in the progression of our operation; have always understood it. Usually, I’m OK about it. I’ll keep fond memories of my favorites, flip through that mental photo album, chuckle at the calves’ cute antics and relive the adventures featuring one of them in a starring role.

But this year has been different. The graduating class included five calves we became attached to because circumstances created the need for more extensive hands-on contact. We kept them and their mamas at home during the winter, instead of sending them to the ranch with the rest of the pairs. 
 
Remember the twins, Freddie and Flossie, namesakes of the younger set of Bobsey twins from the children's book series? We’ve had twins before, but for the first time this year, we were able to keep both calves because the mom, #67, claimed both.

The days of the departures arrived. The 31 steers, including Freddie, spent the summer on pasture at the ranch where the cows and calves are wintered and would be trucked from there to the feedlot. The lot owner brought two trucks and trailers and we met them at the ranch with our rig. My last blog post, “Head ‘Em Up, Move ‘Em Out!” describes our cattle drive to get the steers from the pasture to the holding pen.

For the first time, I decided to ride along when the calves were hauled to the feedlot. Call it “The Long Good-Bye” but I felt compelled to go. Besides, I had never experienced this aspect of our cattle operation. I didn’t see Freddie because, once Bill got the calves sorted into groups that fit into the trailers, the loading went fast. Once the three trailers were loaded, we headed out.

OK…so it wasn’t the old TV western “Rawhide.”

No Rowdy Yates, the young impulsive cowboy played by Clint Eastwood, or Gil Favor, the trail boss played by Eric Fleming.

Instead of driving hundreds of cattle along the Chisholm Trail from Texas to a rail head in Abilene, Kansas, where they were sold and herded onto an eastbound train, we drove a herd of 31 yearling steers from a rented pasture…

along a mile of gravel road…

through a left-hand turn at an intersection…

through a gate into a hay field…

where the lush green regrowth invited a quick snack and was too tempting to pass up...

then through another gate into a pasture...

and into a large holding pen in the owner’s corral…

to be loaded into trailers and driven to an area feedlot the next day.

Our cattle drive was led by Bill in his pickup holding open the driver’s side door, rattling a plastic bucket with grain and yelling, “S’calf! S’calf!” The farm paparazza, me, leaned out the tailgate and documented the event, snapping digital pics, not tintypes.

The land owner rode drag—brought up the rear—on his ATV, shagged strays and kept those little dogies movin’.

Instead of cowboy drovers on horseback, we had the “Quad Squad” – the land owner’s neighbors on ATVs.

They blocked two roads at an intersection and rode the flanks when we turned into the pasture and headed for the corral.

After the gate swung shut behind them, the steers were treated to a generous portion of grain in feed bunks.

At trail's end, instead of carousing in a local saloon, tossing down shots of watered down rotgut whiskey, we relaxed with beers.

Yippee ki yay o! Git along little dogies!

Continuing the September 1st calving saga that began on morning pasture rounds, the second event occurred when we made evening rounds, and featured one of the Missouri “Show Me” cows, #374. I related the story behind the “Show Me” cows in a blog post on September 1st, hours before this episode unfolded!

I’ve been going along on the evening calf-check rounds to work gates, help find cows with newborn calves and lend assistance whenever necessary. That evening, when we entered one of the rented pastures, we saw Cow #374 and her calf, born two days earlier, a hundred yards ahead near the pond. The “Show Me” cows are easy to spot: They all have bright yellow tags in both ears, instead of just one. #374 is also easy to spot because of her bovine body language: She has a somewhat flighty disposition anyway, but with a new calf to protect, her mama cow radar goes on high alert when non-bovine blips are detected. Tagging her calves is always a risky adventure!

But this calf we saw with her didn’t have a tag. Maybe Bill, in his haste to prolong his lifespan after tagging the calf, didn’t get the tag inserted securely. Then another calf appeared from behind Cow #374, sporting a tag of the same number. So there was one calf with a tag and one without. None of the other cows in that pasture had calved, that we were aware of. Or maybe one did and abandoned her calf. But there had never been abandonment issues with any of these cows. Bill grabbed the binoculars and focused in to confirm that there were two calves, one without a tag. Closer inspection also revealed that the untagged calf was thin and eating grass, a sign it wasn’t getting enough milk from mama.

Bill’s conclusion: #374 had twins! How had he missed that?

Bill’s assumption: #374 delivered one calf, cleaned it off and maybe nudged it toward its first meal of colostrum-rich milk. Then, Mother Nature tapped her on the shoulder roast and advised, “We’re not finished here yet.” #374 left that calf and relocated to deliver another one. It was the second calf Bill found her with and tagged. At some point, the first calf attempted a reunion with mama, but wasn’t being claimed.

Bill’s plan: Catch the orphan, put it in the back of the truck, take it home and get a serving of colostrum substitute into it pronto. It was not only malnourished but, with temperatures near 90 the last two days, it was also dehydrated. A cow in an adjacent pasture had lost her calf a week earlier, but still appeared to have milk. Bill would return the next day to bring her home and, hopefully, broker an adoption.

Mama #374 didn’t appreciate the close scrutiny and headed in the opposite direction with the tagged calf trotting along with her. Bill drove closer, grabbed his calf-catcher—a long piece of aluminum pipe with a hook attached to one end—and walked slowly toward the untagged calf.

It bolted and set off what turned out to be a very trying ordeal: the calf, panicked and squalling, trying to avoid capture by sprinting in a zigzag pattern; Bill, trying to catch it by dashing a few yards off to the side, veering close enough to try to hook one leg with the catcher while also trying not to actually chase it which would only make it run faster; and me, calf-herding in the pickup, trying to follow Bill’s shouted directives to “Get around it!” and “Don’t let it get through the fence!” If the calf slipped through the fence to the hay field on one side, or the neighbor’s pasture on the other, we’d have a real disaster: Bill would lose valuable time climbing over or through the barbed wire fence and I’d have to find a gate to drive through. Although, my thinking was the calf had to be weak from not receiving regular meals and, sooner or later, would run out of energy and collapse.

Finally, the calf got hung up when it scrambled through a short length of dilapidated barbed wire fence into an old pen that really didn’t have a purpose but had never been removed. It frantically freed itself and collapsed on the ground. That was the break we needed. As it got up to take off again, Bill hooked one leg then grabbed it with his hand and “walked” the calf around the short fence to the pickup. He trussed the legs with a nylon rope to keep the calf still and from injuring itself on the way home, then put it in the back of the truck. While struggling with the calf, he got a good look at its underside and discovered it was a heifer.

When we arrived at home, Bill put the calf in a small pen in the barn and fed it a bag of just-add-water colostrum substitute. Newborn calves need colostrum within the first twelve hours after birth, just like human babies. Bill didn’t know if the calf had sucked much from the cow, and thought there was still some benefit even more than a day later.

The next morning, Bill fed another bag of colostrum to the calf, then did his morning pasture checks for new calves. While he was in the adjacent pasture from the previous night’s adventure, he found the prospective adoptive mother, #62-1, who was agreeable about being herded to a temporary catch pen he’d constructed weeks earlier from tubular steel cattle panels. Compared to the previous night, that was easy.

Bill came home, traded the mini-truck for his pickup with small livestock trailer attached and headed back to get the mama-to-be. Once home, he unloaded and herded her to the squeeze chute to check her milk. He got a little under two cups, an encouraging sign.  

In previous adoption attempts, there was usually a recently deceased calf, but not this time. #62-1’s calf had been dead at least a week and predators left no traces. There would be no hide to skin off the dead calf and tie on the adoptee, and no fresh afterbirth to smear on the live calf. These are two methods used to trick the cow into thinking the adoptee is really her own calf. While #62-1 was restrained in the chute after milking, Bill put on an obstetrical sleeved glove, reached into the birth canal and swabbed fluid to rub on the live calf. He unexpectedly found some week-old afterbirth and was it ever rank! But he smeared it on the calf anyway. Then he topped it off with a generous sprinkling of “Orphan-No-More” calf claim powder, a product containing molasses, anise oil and salt that encourages the cow to lick the calf, helping to assure adoption. Cows love molasses and crave salt, so this is like dessert for them.

Bill herded prospective Mama #62-1 to a pen in the barn and introduced her “new” calf. He stood back and watched the interaction. Mama sniffed the calf and showed guarded interest. She didn’t kick or shove it, which would have indicated initial rejection. Satisfied for the moment, he left to give them privacy to bond.

Later, when Bill checked on the bonding process, he found the calf lying down and the cow mooing over it. After pasture rounds in late evening, he checked again and found the calf sucking a teat and wagging its tail. Mama #62-1 looked at Bill, then the calf, and softly mooed cow-speak for “I love my new baby heifer!”

The next day, Bill turned the new pair out into the small corral pasture. Mama #62-1 stayed close by her new calf, and the heifer was starting to look healthier with the regular meals. 

The following day, we loaded the pair and returned them to #62-1’s home pasture. When they were released from the trailer, Mama headed toward her friends and the little heifer trotted beside her. Another happy adoption at the Hilbert farm!

Earlier this week, Bill came in from his pasture rounds and said he could tell #62-1 had returned to full milk—her calf’s face was covered and dripping with it!

On September 1st, a week and a half into calving season, we had our first two adventures!

When Bill made his morning rounds to check for new calves he found Cow #17 frantically fussing and pacing at the edge of the pond. Bloody mucous streamed from her rear end, indicating she’d likely just given birth. Bill drove closer and looked to where the cow’s attention was riveted, fearing what he expected to see—a newborn calf in the pond, its head barely above water.

The calf was bawling piteously, head thrashing from side to side, its little hooves apparently mired in mud. Bill slammed the truck to a stop, bailed out and waded in, fully clothed and wearing gumboots. He struggled to free the four little hooves from the sucking mud, then lifted and carried the slimy, squirmy calf out of the water and several yards safely beyond, followed by the distraught mama. The poor little thing was weak and wouldn’t have lasted much longer.

Bill, his gumboots full of pond water, sloshed back to the truck and returned with his ear tagger and a syringe. While he tagged the calf and gave it an injection to prevent scours (severe diarrhea), he discovered the calf was a heifer.

So, how did the calf end up in the water? Maybe Cow #17 heard about the water birth method and how it helps ease pain and even speed up the labor process. The warm pond may have seemed like an ideal birth pool. She must have overlooked the part about getting out of the water before delivery. Water delivery may work with human births when the newborn is immediately removed from the water, but a cow would be unable get her calf out by herself.

Bill’s theory, and the most likely scenario, was the cow delivered near the pond’s edge. When the calf made her first wobbly attempt to stand, she may have toppled into the water. Frightened, she likely struggled and became stuck in the mud. Her head was still slick with afterbirth indicating the cow hadn’t finished cleaning her yet. Immediate post-birth cleaning is imperative to remove any pieces of birth sac clinging to the calf’s face, help stimulate breathing and nudge the calf to its feet.

After a few minutes of observation to be sure the calf would recover, Bill returned to his rounds thoroughly soaked! Not that the water was deep. It wasn’t or the calf would have drowned. But he was soaked from carrying the wet, slimy calf. Later when he told me about the adventure, he admitted that removing his clothes, except for underwear, never occurred to him. At least his jeans and shirt would have been dry! He was also glad this didn’t happen later in the fall, when the air and water temperature could both have been much cooler.

(I reminded Bill of another spontaneous pond swim years ago when he took our Golden Retriever at that time, Brandy, on her first duck hunt in the winter. He had trained her on water retrieves using a training dummy and she loved those exercises! But when Bill shot a duck and it dropped into a pond, she dog-paddled out, sniffed, then circled and returned to the bank, leaving the dead duck to bob in the ripples of her wake. He sent her several times with the same result—no duck. Finally, he shucked off his clothes down to skivvies, swam out and retrieved the duck. No, he didn’t carry it back in his mouth to show her how it’s done! More training, using a live duck with restraints to keep it from flying, followed; and once Brandy caught on, she loved jumping ponds with Bill!)

Cow #17 and her lucky little calf are now doing great!

Bill returned earlier from his rounds of the bovine maternity wards. As of this morning, we've had 15 new calves since August 23rd—that's 9 1/2 days (We also do evening rounds). By Bill's calculations, calving wasn't due to start until today. Oops! Details to follow at a later date.

What are Missouri “Show Me” cows and what possible connection could they have to a margarita? I’ll explain.

Two years ago Bill bought six cows with month-old calves on them from a cattleman in Missouri—sight unseen. Remember the chapter in my book called “Boomer Sooner Bovines,” when he purchased ten cows, also sight unseen except for email pictures, from a cattle trader in Oklahoma? That experience went down in our farmlore not as a full-fledged train wreck, but definitely a derailment! Although, we still have three of those cows and they produce great calves.

Bill found the Missouri cows in a classified ad on a cattlemen’s sale website. When he requested “Show me pictures,” the guy emailed several. Bill liked what he saw and thought the six pair would blend in with our herd, which was calving at the time, so he bought them.

Just as with the “Boomer Sooner Bovines,” it doesn’t matter how many pixels those emailed pictures have, they don’t show certain characteristics. Like the fact that the calves had been exposed to pneumonia. Within a few days, they were all sick. Then, one of the cows came down with it. Bill discovered she had a snotty nose and was coughing. This occurred on a weekend and he didn’t have the appropriate antibiotic on hand to treat her. By Monday, she had pneumonia.

Bill got the antibiotic and administered it. The calves fully recovered, and the cow gradually improved but she sustained permanent lung damage and was eventually sold. He had already called the seller about the calves having been exposed to the sickness before they were shipped. The seller agreed to reimburse Bill for the antibiotics and compensate him for the loss on the cow.

Then, last summer one of the “Show Me” cows aborted her calf. She, too, was treated to a one-way chauffeured trip to the sale barn! We have four left.

So, what does all of this have to do with margaritas, besides the fact that the experience could drive a farmer to drink?

One of the Missouri “Show Me” cows, #301, was one of the last to calve a year ago in late October. Bill expected her to calve late again this year, so she wasn’t on his calf-watch radar yet. Monday evening, I found her with a newborn calf! Let’s count off the months backwards on our fingers to determine when she was bred: July, June, May…November! Hmmm, apparently there was some Thanksgiving hanky-panky going on!

On the way back to the house after tagging the new little heifer calf, Bill and I chatted about the start of this fall’s calving. So far, we had a first calf heifer with an uneventful birth experience that produced a nice bull; and a surprise off-the-radar delivery of a little heifer. Later in the evening, we celebrated with margaritas.

I named the calf Margarita!