Snowflake Update........

Snowflake may have finally turned the corner....she nursed vigorously this morning! As of last night, we were thinking she wouldn't last another couple days.......although we had been tube feeding her, you can't do that forever. If you don't let them actually get hungry, they will never have the desire to nurse, so we decided just to let her be last night and see what would happen this morning. Also, we put molasses on the nipple, which may have just done the trick. She seemed actually interested about 6:30 this morning, and was actually bawling and latched on and took nearly a whole bottle by 9:30!

She is still weak and anything could happen, but it is very encouraging that she is actually wanting to nurse! Now, we are trying to decide whether or not to try her back on her mom, or just let her be a bottle baby......it would be best for her to go back on the cow, but she may not take her back since it has been 3 days. We may bring mom and put her and baby in a stall and see what happens. We would just have to watch closely and make sure the cow doesn't try to injure or kill the calf.....but it is a possibility.

I will update later, and hopefully have some new pictures......have a great day everyone!

She's Still With Us.......

Snowflake is still alive, and doing somewhat better. I say that cautiously, because she is far from being out of the woods.  She has some water in her lungs which is making her not want to nurse from the fluid and just plain ole feeling bad.....so we are tubing her with colostrum and milk. She is alert, and can stand, so that is good. Our veterinarian has put her on several meds, Baytril, Dex, Vitamin B, and Banamine for pain, she gets 3 shots a every morning. We also gave her Sub Q fluids, and that seemed to help her too.  So, for now, it's just keep her comfortable, hydrated, and alert......I will update later.......

How is She Still Alive!?!?!?

Things have been sort of hectic and exciting around here......yesterday morning  Terry went to check the cows, and found a newborn calf in the pond!! Mom was just standing there watching, but of course there was nothing she could do. She had been born either late the night before, or early yesterday morning. Of course, it is very cold here, temps have been in the teens and we've had snow too. We're not sure if she walked out on the ice (there was just a very thin layer of ice on the pond), or if she was born at the edge, and just stumbled into the pond when she got up. Either way, it was a dire situation.....Terry called me immediately and told me to bring him a rope, so when I got there , he roped her and pulled her out. The pond is pretty shallow, and she could stand up, but only the top of her head and nose were above water.....and we have no idea how long she was in there!

So we got her out, and immediately stated drying her with towels, and put her in the floorboard of the truck, with the heat blowing on her on the ride back to the house. Made her a bed in the laundry room, and put a heater in front of her and warm blankets on her. She was shivering really bad, and cold as ice, her eyes were rolled back in her head, eyes closed........and basically non-responsive.....she was very bad off. I took her temperature, which didn't even register on my digital thermometer, which meant her temp was below 90* F. A normal temp for a calf should be around 101.6. Finally after about 45 minutes, it registered at 90.2, then slowly started coming up from there. Her nose finally got some pink to it, and she started opening her eyes and being more alert.....whew! We really didn't expect her to make it, and she is not out of the woods yet.....she still won't take a bottle or nurse at all......We think she has gotten some water in her lungs, which is not good at all. We gave her a shot of antibiotic, and now it is just a waiting game. She does stand and try to walk around, and is very alert this morning.....just no interest in the bottle.

She is a big, strong calf (she had to be to survive what she did).......she is black with a solid white face, eyeliner on one eye, white on her ears,  and a black speckled nose.....just a doll! I was researching information on the Internet, and it said that usually when their temp falls below 94*F, their organs start shutting down, so I really can't believe she is still alive....her temp was in the 80's........

Ruby Jane loves her, as you will see in the pictures, Ruby would set by her a lot, lick her face and eyes, until she started coming around. It was really sweet, Ruby seemed to be worried about her......

Our hopes are to get her taking the bottle good, then, putting her in the large stall in the barn with mom for a few days. We are hoping that mom takes her back, she didn't seem too concerned that we left with her, she went right back to eating with the herd which is not good. Usually they will run around and call to the calf, but I'm sure she thinks the calf is dead, so we will just wait and see.

So, at this point, we really don't know if she is gonna pull through, they are so sensitive at this stage, and anything can happen, so we are doing all we can for her and hoping for the best! 

So, in the meantime......I have a cow in the house!!!

Still not warmed up yet, pale nose, shivering and eyes shut.......

                                      Barely with us................

                                                       

Ruby Jane checking her out........

Greta and Ruby checking on her......

                                        Checking again, LOL.........

                                              

Starting to come around..........

Ruby and Snowflake.........

Ruby just sat there....wouldn't leave her for the longest (she is such a sweet dog, loves everything and everyone)

Ruby looking worried.........

She's alert now.....and Ruby was kissy, kissy, kissy, which I think helped Snowflake to come around........

Resting.............

Yay.....finally standing up and alert....now to get her to nurse!!

Well, I better go check on her, and try to get her to take some milk......we are still cautiously optimistic, but it's too early to say she is gonna make it, I will post updates whenever I can..........



"Walter".....Breaking Bad......and living up to his name, LOL!!

The bottle baby has officially been named Walter (I named him after Brian Cranston's character from the show Breaking Bad.) Turns out, I couldn't have named him more appropriately.... he is living up to his name, that's for sure!  He is very fiesty....he has already gotten out of his paddock once, and had the horses after him, then got back out into the yard and headed for the road,  but we got him back in.

 I wish I had my camera when we were catching him.....Terry had to tackle him to keep him from running down the driveway into the road....it was a sight to see! It was raining and storming (of course), and Terry ended up covered in mud, but we got him back up.  Earlier that morning, we had let him out to graze and explore the yard a little, so I snapped some pictures....

Checking out the bushes and plants in the yard.......with Gunner and Dior watching through the fence......

Here, he stopped to grab a bite of my monkey grass and watch the cats playing......

Terry brushing and trimming one of the mules' mane..........

Whatcha got there?

While I had the camera, I snapped a couple pictures of my Clematis that is climbing up my front porch rail. It is so pretty this year, it finally took off and started growing..........

A wider view..........

 

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

~DEANNA~

Babies, and More Babies....

Well, two more of our cows have calved, so I thought I'd post some pictures of the new arrivals.

This one was born Monday......

He didn't like me taking his picture, so he ran back to mama........

And yesterday, our red cow delivered a HUGE chocolate colored bull calf. He is a doll, and he let me walk right up to him and touch him and take his picture. But he'll get over that in a day or two, then he'll run and keep up with mom....... you can see her in the background, she didn't want to hang around when I got close, so she backed up, LOL......

He is as big as a couple of our calves that are 2-3 weeks old!..........

What a face!!.............

More pictures of Sonny and Mr. T at suppertime yesterday.........

Can we eat now??

Sonny.....giving me the "whatcha doing....are you trying to catch me?" look......

Well, that's all for now, I am tired and dirty, I have worked in the garden and yard all morning, so I'm gonna take a shower and rest before time to start supper and go out and feed.

Have a great afternoon everyone!

We have a new baby........

Is this not the cutest face you have ever seen?

We have been expecting this little girl for over a week, and she finally decided to come into this world yesterday. This was her mom's first time calving so we were keeping a close eye on her...and it's a good thing we did! Being a first time mom, she didn't know what to do, she kept trying to pin the baby down and flip her over, so we put her up and worked with her until she accepted the baby. We were really afriaid she would hurt her badly or kill her, so we stayed close for about 3 hours, until she finally figured out what was going on.

She also wouldn't let the heifer nurse, so here we put her in gates and made her stand still to let the baby nurse.........

The baby is really strong and a good size for a first calf, she has a good strong suckle reflex!........

Here she is just born about 5 minutes old...........

Another shot with mom after she finally got to her feet........

Here she fell back down to rest before trying to get up and nurse......

I love it when they have these unusual face markings....it makes it so much easier to glance into the herd and see which calf goes with which cow. When they are all solid black or look the same it makes it much harder to tell them apart, LOL......

We are expecting 3 more any day now, I will try to get pictures to post of each one if possible. Everyone have a great weekend!

I'm Back....and so is the baby!

I am finally finding time to post, it has been a very busy couple of weeks! This time of year, I am always trying to get some outside spring cleaning done. I have been very busy doing yardwork, and am currently working on painting the board fence that goes around our yard and paddock. I worked all day yesterday and a couple hours today pressure washing it to clean it and strip what little paint was left on it off. Tomorrow I will start painting, and I figure it will take me until the weekend to get it fiinished. But it needs it terribly bad, LOL.....it has been about 8 years since it was painted, so I am looking forward to seeing it when it is finished!

Well, the twin bull calf is back with us.....we had put him back on his mama, and although she was letting him nurse some, we were still having to supplement him with a bottle. Sometimes she would let him nurse and sometimes she would kick him away. His twin sister is literally almost twice his size, so we made the decision to bring him back to the house and keep him in a paddock so I can up his milk, and get him started on feed. He is healthy and strong, but pretty small and is gonna need some TLC. I don't mind, he is so much fun!

Here he is this morning waiting on his bottle.....

Here's his favorite thing to do, LOL..........

John Boy and Billy are in the adjoining paddock, and they watch every move the calf makes, here is Billy looking over the gate watching him nurse..........

John Boy Posin' for the camera...........

John Boy and Billy trying to stick their noses through the gate to get a better look.......

And this is John Boy's favorite.....every morning he comes up to get his big ole head scratched (and I do mean big, LOL)....Billy is a little skittish and doesn't like to be petted alot, so he took off when I got the camera out.......

Well, I have tons of things to do, but I am gonna try to post more often, hope everyone is having a great spring, I know we are. It is hectic around here, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

Update on the Twin Calves...

A week or so ago, I told about how I had a bottle baby,we had a cow that had twins. Well, we kept him up and bottle fed him for about 4 days, and then thought we would try to get the mama cow to take him back. Thankfully, it worked! She accepted him right back when we put them up in the barn, and I guess she figured she couldn't get away from him, so she let him start nursing. We are going to keep them up for awhile to ensure that she won't run off and leave him when we turn them back out, or to at least make sure he is strong enough to keep up with her if she does! I went to the barn this morning to feed them and took some pictures. We are still supplementing the bull calf with a bottle, but he is doing great. The heifer calf won't get near us, but the little bull, runs right up looking for that bottle....here he is trying to nurse on my fingers........

He figured out real quick that wasn't what he was looking for and ran back to mama and sis......the mama cow was busy eating, but she stopped occaisionally to look and swing her head at me, she wasn't too thrilled that I was there, LOL..............

Before I left, I snapped some pictures of the rest of our herd...............

One of our newest calves very curious about what I was doing......

A couple more of the girls.......

Some of the younger cows checking me out........

On my way back home, I encountered a flock of Guineas crossing the road. By the time of got my camera, they had already crossed and were moving quick, but I manged to snap a picture............several had turned to look at me I guess they were thinking about what I was gonna do next, LOL....

Hope everyone has a great day!

~DEANNA~