Hereford calved a heifer on September 11th, the same day Olpe was born. Because she had little tips of white hair on her ears that looked like a coating of frost, Bill named her “Frosty.”

Farm Paparazza's Note: In my two best pictures of Hereford and Frosty I caught Hereford with her tongue out in both and Frosty's out in one. Mama's anticipating that I have range cubes stashed in my pocket for her. I have no idea why Frosty has hers out unless it's genetic!

Hereford’s almost eleven years old and has been a member of our herd for over nine years. She’s gentle, the epitome of motherhood and always has a more than ample supply of milk. So, when Bill checked on the pair three days after the birth and found Frosty looking thin and bawling like she was hungry, he was concerned. He brought the pair to the pasture near the house and fixed a bottle of milk replacer for Frosty. Once he got her trapped between his legs and forced the nipple into her mouth, she gulped it right down. Within a couple of days all we had to do was go in the pasture, call her name and she would come running! OK, maybe she didn’t really know her name, but she knew our voices and those were her breakfast and dinner bells! After she drained the bottle, she went back to her mama and tried to suck out a little dessert.
 
Despite not having much milk, Hereford was still an exemplary mama. Motherhood was her life’s calling and she took it seriously. She closely supervised the bottle-feedings, like when my sister, Lila, visited and helped feed Frosty. Hereford crowded right in and nuzzled Frosty while she ate.

Because the mother/daughter bond was so strong and Frosty was easy to feed, we didn’t put her in the Romper Room with Olpe and Miracle. But, separation at some point was inevitable. Hereford was one of our oldest cows and no longer had milk.
 
In November, after most of the calving was complete, we worked the cows and calves and transported them to the ranch for the winter. Bill decided the time had come to start culling the herd. The operation now totaled over 70 pairs. We’d lost a couple of older cows to anaplasmosis.
 
Anaplasmosis 101 - An infectious disease of cattle that causes destruction of red blood cells. The disease is caused by a minute parasite, Anaplasma marginale, found in the red blood cells of infected cattle. Older cows are more susceptible.
 
A couple of neighbors and other cattlemen Bill talked to also lost cows to this disease last fall.
 
I knew the dreaded moment was coming. Not only were we losing Hereford, but our other favorite cow, Sweet Pea, a Charolais mix, failed to calve this year because she didn’t get bred. Both cows were not only favorites, but legends in our operation. They were gentle, would eat range cubes out of our hands and raised great calves. Over the years, Bill kept several of Hereford’s calves as replacement heifers due to the favorable genetics.
 
Two years ago, Sweet Pea, the local vet and I shared what started out as a horrible incident that eventually had a happy ending. As I blogged in the opening paragraph of the post, “Trooper, the Holstein Adoptee – Part 1,” dated October 14, 2013, that whole calving saga was probably worthy of mini-series production on the RFD Channel! Sweet Pea didn’t join the bovine cast of characters until Part 2.

The sad day came for Bill to haul the culled cow load to the sale barn. I went to the corral and gave Hereford and Sweet Pea their last handfuls of range cubes, then petted them, said good-bye and tearfully walked away. I wouldn’t watch them being loaded. Two other cows from the herd were also taking their last ride in our trailer.
 
Frosty joined Olpe and Miracle in the Romper Room. Bill soon learned that trying to feed three calves from three bottles when you only have two hands, and the calves are clamoring around you, was total chaos! He introduced the two bigger calves, Olpe and Frosty, to the nipple buckets that could be hung on the pen panel rungs. Then he opened the gate and Miracle trotted out to be fed from the bottle. Sometimes she didn’t drink all her milk and Bill offered it to the other two calves. More chaos ensued as they shoved and butted each other away from the nipple!

The raw holes in Miracle’s hide from the screwworm damage have finally dried up and scabbed over. Bill discontinued all treatments a couple of months ago. This pic was taken in December and showed a bald spot on top of her hip and another one above the white streak of medicine. Her hair was still matted from salve Bill applied to fight infection. Look at that sad expression on her face. Poor thing, she was embarrassed about her appearance!

She is slowly growing and now acting like a normal calf, frolicking with the other two. Compared to them, though, she’s still undersized. When Bill added a grain mixture and hay to their diet, she was often crowded away from the small feed bunk. Her physical growth may be stunted, but there’s nothing slow about her mental growth! She patiently waits until they finish, then approaches the bunk.
 
Here are current photos: one of Miracle and one of the three calves together.

​Our evening walks are usually a family event for Bill, Cricket and I. Usually, but not always. One evening three days after Olpe was born, I was game for a longer walk than Bill because he had farm chores he wanted to finish before dark. My route was a path in our “timber” pasture, appropriately named because of the three pastures on our 160 acres, this one contains the largest stand of timber. I followed the path through the pasture, into the timber, down to the creek, then along the south bank, heading for the crossing to go to the north side. One-Toe, our amputee with only one “toe” on her right rear hoof, had calved a couple of days earlier on that side of the creek and I wanted to check out her new heifer.
 
I found her before I reached the creek crossing. She’d moved her calf to the south side sometime during that day. I slowly approached the cow and calf, softly complimenting One-Toe on her new baby. She’s usually very gentle but, like most cows, her motherly protective radar goes on high alert for a few days after birthing and I didn’t want to spook her.
 
As I moved closer, I spotted another, smaller calf lying near the pair. This was obviously another cow’s calf, but which one? None of the other cows were in this area. The calf raised its head and I saw a yellow ear tag but wasn’t close enough to read it. I crept forward until the number was readable. 54? Wheezy’s calf? Couldn’t be! I inched closer and rechecked the number. Yep, 54. The poor thing had been missing for five days and somehow survived predators, dehydration, starvation and a major infestation of screwworms! Maybe she found One-Toe and her calf and snitched enough meals to stay barely alive.
 
Breaking into a trot I headed for the house to get Bill, but met him in his pickup at the pasture gate. He’d made a discovery of his own but that situation would only get worse.

​Cow #3 presented us with a nice bull calf on September 11th. Bill named the calf Olpe. Not the Opie played by Ron Howard on the 1960’s sit-com “The Andy Griffith Show,” but Olpe, a small Kansas town south of Emporia where Cow #3 came from. Bill ear-tagged him, made sure he could stand and that he knew how to find the cafeteria. No apparent problems.
 
While I was tramping along my smaller-scaled version of “Over the River and Through the Woods,” Bill and Cricket were hiking up the terraces in an adjacent pasture to check the level of a water tank. They were headed toward the timber pasture when Bill heard a calf’s incessant, distressed bawling. He walked in the direction of the distressed cry, crossed over the barbed wire fence and found Olpe alone at the edge of the timber, no mom or other cows or calves close by. He could have been napping and was left behind when the herd grazed its way to another part of the pasture. But it wasn’t like Cow #3 to leave her calf out of sight and so far away.
 
After a quick search, Bill found the herd near the hay feeders but #3 wasn’t with them. He located her about fifty yards away on the creek bank. She was lying down and resisted his poking and prodding attempts to get her up. Something was obviously wrong!
 
By then, it was dusk and Olpe needed supper. Bill decided the quickest solution was to walk the quarter mile back to the house and get the pickup, drive it to where he found the unhappy calf, load him in the back, take him to the barn for the night and give him milk replacer. He would deal with the mother the next morning.

When I met Bill in the truck at the pasture gate I told him about Calf #54 and he was shocked! I climbed into the cab to go with him and help load Olpe, then we drove to the place I’d found #54, loaded her and headed for the barn.
 
Bill was still astounded that I’d found Calf #54 alive. In her first eleven days of life, she’d survived a three-day disappearance with almost no nourishment; a horrendous infestation of screwworms slowly eating her alive; then a second disappearance of five days, again, with minimal nourishment. If she hadn’t found One-Toe she would certainly have died. Finding her was a major miracle! So Bill named her “Miracle.”
 
We arrived at the barn, secured the calves in a pen and went to the house to mix up bottles of milk replacer.
 
The next morning, Bill was finally able to get Cow #3 on her feet and tried to herd her to the barn. She was lethargic and he only got as far as the gate when she lay down again. He returned to the house, called a vet and described the situation. The vet concluded the problem was most likely milk fever, a metabolic disease caused by a low blood calcium level (hypocalcaemia). Recommended treatment was a calcium supplement administered either intravenously or orally from a tube loaded in what looked like a caulking gun. An IV wasn’t going to work: The cow was weak, but she wasn’t restrained and wouldn’t lie still long enough for an IV to be effective. Bill drove to the vet office to get the supplement and “caulking gun” applicator. When he returned home, the cow was still lying at the gate. He “caulked” the medication into her mouth and down her throat.
 
By Wednesday, Cow #3 had recovered enough for Bill to herd her to the barn so he could try to milk her and reunite her with Olpe. Even though her udder was swollen like it was filled with milk, he was unable to get much and what came out was thick, yellowish and showed traces of blood. Back to the house for another phone consultation with the vet.
 
Based on the new symptoms Bill described and the condition of the milk, the vet’s diagnosis was toxic mastitis and he recommended a shot of penicillin into each teat.
 
Toxic Mastitis 101 - Inflammation of the cow’s mammary gland usually caused by bacteria entering the teat canal and moving to the udder. These bacteria multiply and produce toxins that cause injury to milk-secreting tissue and various ducts throughout the mammary gland, creating reduced milk production and altering milk content. Severe generalized toxemia spreads throughout the cow’s body and can be fatal.
 
By the next day, Cow #3’s condition worsened. She became more lethargic to the point that she laid down early in the day for the last time. She died during the night.
 
Olpe and Miracle were the first two Romper Room enrollees and continued to receive milk replacer supplement bottles twice a day. During Miracle’s five-day disappearance, the screwworm infestation had spread until some of the raw areas were three to four inches in diameter. Bill resumed the treatment regimen and kept a careful watch for infection.

Last fall, if you’d walked into my kitchen in the morning or evening you would have seen three two-quart “baby” bottles and three over-sized nipples in the dish drainer by the sink. Stepping out into the garage you would have found two 50-pound bags of just-add-water milk replacer. Yes, we have a Romper Room of bottle calves again this year. No twins like last year, just three orphans.
 
Our first two calves were both enrolled the same night: Olpe, the target of a search-and-rescue, and Miracle, who was just that—a miracle discovery. Frosty arrived later, after we discovered her mom, our beloved Hereford cow, didn’t have much milk. Here’s a recent Romper Room class photo.

​Miracle was born on September 5th, Frosty and Olpe on the 11th. Theoretically, they should all be about the same size. So what happened to Miracle? It was a miracle she was born and an even bigger miracle she survived!

Miracle’s mom, Cow #54, had shown signs of illness since Bill brought the cows home from the ranch in the spring. She was losing weight and wheezed. Bill started calling her “Wheezy.”
 
Initially, Bill thought she may have hardware disease.
 
Hardware Disease 101 – Usually caused by ingestion of a sharp metallic object. The object settles in the reticulum, or first chamber in the gastrointestinal system, and can penetrate or irritate the lining. If the object is pushed through the reticulum wall, it can pierce the heart sac and cause death.
 
After talking to a couple of veterinarians, he decided the symptoms pointed to bovine leukosis.
 
Bovine Leukosis 101 - A cancerous disease caused by Bovine Leukosis Virus (BLV), a retrovirus infecting beef and dairy cattle that targets lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell. These cells are part of the immune system. BLV can cause tumors in various internal organs and result in lack of milk production and eventual death.
 
A blood test could have determined whether or not BLV was present, but Bill decided not to incur the expense of a vet bill plus the test. A cow with the disease can’t be sold. She would eventually die, but he hoped to at least get a calf from her.
 
Wheezy continued to go downhill all summer, losing weight until she was skin and bones. The outlook wasn’t promising:

• She could die before the calf was born;
• If she did produce a calf, it might be stillborn;
• If the calf survived the birth process, it could have a low birth weight and Wheezy wouldn’t have much, if any, milk.

 
On the morning of September 5th, Bill went out to check on the cows and found Wheezy with a calf, a heifer that was small but alive! He contemplated taking it away and feeding it as a bottle calf. But, ever the optimist, he decided that since she’d always been a good mother he would wait a couple of days to determine if she had enough milk to sustain the calf.
 
We saw the pair together Saturday evening and again Sunday evening. We assumed the calf was getting some milk or it would have been bawling. Then the calf disappeared.
 
Sadly, Wheezy’s own physical problems outweighed her motherly instincts. She ignored her calf and abandoned it when the herd grazed its way to a different part of the pasture. Bill searched the area where the cows were hanging out earlier, but couldn’t find the calf. Because of its small birth weight, finding it in the tall pasture grass would be difficult, and next to impossible if Wheezy had abandoned it in the timber.

Three days later, on Wednesday, Bill found the calf at the hay feeder with her mother and the other cows and calves. She was thin, but alive. The poor little thing also had a major infestation of screwworms. They had congregated around the rectal area, left uncleaned by the mother, then eaten through the flesh in five places on her left and right sides. She was also covered with thousands of the tiny white eggs.

Screwworm 101 – Screwworms attack open wounds, infected sores or, in the case of our calf, a rectal area that is not cleaned frequently. A female screwworm is quite prolific, quickly laying 100-300 eggs on the dry perimeter of the wound. In less than 24 hours, larvae hatch from the eggs and begin to feed on the open wound. It will take one to two weeks for the larvae to become fully developed but in that time, they will consume a large amount of dead and live flesh. Untreated screwworm infestations can be fatal. The larvae will continue to feed on the animal and eventually eat it alive. Ugh!

Bill came back to the house and consulted with a vet about treatment. He gathered up iodine solution, screwworm killer, buckets of water, old towels and me. We headed back to the pasture in the mini-truck and found the pair was still together. This was my first look at the calf since the previous Sunday evening. I’ve seen plenty of gross things on the farm in over thirty years, but this surpassed everything! Seeing creepy-crawly maggots on a dead animal can cause a gag moment; but to see them eating away at open wounds on a live calf required rapid and repeated swallowing to avoid a major hurl event! The tiny white eggs stood out on her black coat, as if she’d been liberally sprinkled with coarse salt.
 
Bill gave her an iodine solution bath, then rinsed it off, dried her with old towels wiping off as many of the eggs as possible, then sprayed on the screwworm killer. She still smelled like iodine and her coat had a blue sheen from the screwworm solution. Again, Bill considered taking the heifer away from her mother and bottle-feeding her. But, even though she was thin, she put up an impressive struggle during the iodine bath and it took both of us to hold her. We assumed she was apparently getting some milk and left the pair together. Bill would check on them later.
 
The next day, Bill loaded the screwworm treatment supplies and went in search of Cow #54 and her calf. He found the cow, but no calf. He combed the area where we’d found them the previous day, along the creek bank and even in the creek, but couldn’t find the calf.
 
Once again, we searched extensively for a couple of days, thinking the calf might wander in search of her mother. Chances of finding her alive were quickly going south. Finally, we gave her up for dead and assumed if we found anything, it would be a carcass picked clean by predators.
 
Meanwhile, our fall calving was at its peak with three or four births daily. Bill was making at least two trips per day to our three pastures as well as four we rented to check for pending births and the well-being of the calves already on the ground. The ten first-calf heifers were on pasture at home where we could monitor progress from the house. First-calf heifer births can be a little dicey and require closer supervision than older, more experienced cows. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s also not uncommon for a prospective new mother to quit pushing during the delivery process, requiring intervention by the Certified Bovine Midwife (Bill) and his CBM Assistant (me) to step in and pull the calf. Or, the new mom may not know what to do with the little creature she’s just expelled from her body and need a crash course on motherhood. Most of our girls came through the process beautifully this year with one exception where birth assistance was necessary.
 
We were also dealing with another developing crisis and a situation that would ultimately prove heart-breaking.

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!

Our 2015 calving season began with the birth of a fine baby bull to First Calf Heifer #65 sometime during the night last Saturday. When Bill found the pair Sunday morning, our new mama had cleaned him up so he was dry and looking for breakfast. FCH #65 is a good mama!

As the calf was born in August, I’ve named him Augustus, Gus for short.