I am still here......... I haven't run away from my blog or anything crazy.
I have had a lot going on in the last few weeks and it is fairly insane.
Firstly, my modem lay down and died, (a Telstra one of course).
Cue many long winded phone calls to Telstra to sort out a new one. Then the waiting game checking the mail and finally troubleshooting to get it going.
Then, my husband got kicked in the leg by a bull the other day.
We rushed into town and had it X-rayed. It isn't broken, but it is extremely painful and bruised to the max. We don't really know if it is ligament or tendon damage yet. We rushed down to Dubbo for a second opinion as I was quite worried about it.
I was mostly worried that if we didn't do the right thing by the leg from the get-go, he would end up with a hopeless leg that won't work properly forevermore. The leg seems to be healing up, but it is a slow process. At least he is off the crutches now, and he can get on the 4 wheeler to check the water for the cattle.
To make things worse we have heifers heavy in calf at the moment. We have been watching them like hawks. Everyday, twice a day we check to see if there is any signs of babies appearing. Usually heifers who have their first calves get into trouble birthing their calves, so we wait and watch.
One that birthed naturally ended up busting the nerve in her back (the calf was stillborn). She was lying on the ground and my job was to water and feed her twice a day. I really thought she would get up, but in the end things looked bad for her. And she was on the verge of fly strike, so we shot her.
Another one went into labour and the calf she was having was much too big, so we had to help her out. My father-in-law put her in the crush so he could pull the calf. She lay down, so the calf pullers were useless to us as we couldn't get them under her. So I was told to get on the 4 wheeler and put it in low gear and pull this calf out with a rope tied to the motorbike.
I was truly worried that I would hurt her (bust her nerve), or pull the calves front legs off. I managed to pull out the most massive monster sized calf, and there was no way she could have had it on her own.
We had to get the cow out of the crush, so I pulled her out with the Toyota Tabletop. She looked interested in her calf so we let her lick and bond with the baby. As she was out in the open without yards to contain her we wondered if she would run away (if she got up). I thought I busted her nerve by the pulling, but she seemed to try fairly hard to get up. I had hope!
In the morning she was gone.
She ran away down to the farthest corner of the paddock and died of blood loss. The little calf was waiting there in the same spot he was birthed in. I felt so awful for what happened I rushed into town to see if the vet had colostrum. We don't have dairy farms out here, so it was a no-go. I was told Vets don't bother keeping it when it goes off so quickly. I was told to mix a couple of eggs into the calf formula to start it off. It has been a fussed over and cosseted poddy from the moment we fed her.
We had another heifer that prolapsed, the calf died too. And the other day another calved and it wouldn't take the calf. It was the crankiest thing that would eat you alive if if could. This little calf wanted milk, but the mother was just too cranky and had very little milk in her. So now I have another to look after. It is the smartest little calf around and took seconds to figure out that I am her new mum with bottles of milk.
So now we have Lurchy and Smarty.
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| Lurchy the Angus x Charolais with beautiful grey curly hair. |
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| Smarty, the littlest one and the quickest. |
Lurchy has a Angus mother with a Charolais father. Charolais are enormous, so no wonder she had trouble getting monster calf out!
Smarty had a Charolais mother and father, but is much smaller than Lurchy. She is rather cute and they are about 1 week old now.
So in between feeding animals, pulling calves with motorbikes, taking dead calves away and looking after things while my husband has been laid up, things have been rather busy with our "other" busy life with kids things in between. I have been desperate to get back onto the blog for sometime while all this has been going on. I have done things I have never done before, and I have surprised myself how much I can do. Even with my husband out of action for the hard stuff.
