Saturday,
November 11, 2000 10:55 PM
Well,
we began our day thinking that we must just not be cut out for breeding these
cool Scottish highland cows.
We lost our other little calf (born on
our farm around Easter weekend). He had been missing for a few days,
so, early this morning Tim and Maggie Doggie went out to search the
property for him. Tim found the little calf way out in the
upper corner of our property/pasture. It looked as if it just went to
sleep and then didn't wake up (no obvious sign of why it had died).
After some discussion, we felt that we must have a
serious problem. Perhaps the calf ate a poisonous plant? Then there
were even worse considerations. Was the drinking water bad? Did it get
into some hazardous waste that we didn't know was out in the brush? If
that were the case, then it would make sense that the smallest cows would be
affected first, right? We needed answers! These are our prized
*pets* and we need to protect their health at all costs.
The "bovine" group/department of our
veterinary clinic was consulted. We agreed to pay to have an
autopsy done and our property inspected. They felt certain that they
could find our answers; after all, "We do this all the time."
The vet arrived shortly. Tim, the vet and Maggie Doggie headed out to where the calf was. I watched from the living room window as they entered through the gate into the pasture. There they were met by "Ziggy" our quarter horse.
Ziggy acted as if he *knew* the vet -- and
bothered him until he gave the horse a friendly scratch on the neck. All
content, Ziggy went back to grazing.
I smiled to myself, thinking, "He must be a kind
man...horses can sense these things."
As it turned out, the vet found that the
calf had an internal umbilical cord infection/growth (from birth); he
assured us that we would not have caught it even if we knew what to look
for. The breed is so furry/shaggy that the nearly football-sized growth
was not discovered until the vet did an internal cavity check. The vet
said that even if we had caught it early -- like in the first month, that
antibiotics would not have necessarily corrected the problem. "Just
one of those things that happen with cows."
An inspection of our property was also done.
To our great relief, the vet was very impressed, stating that we had a
wonderful piece of property for raising these cows. He had nothing but
praise for our "set up". He basically said that we have
experienced two of only a few things that *could* go wrong with raising
cows. (There's also some kind of weird leg infection thing).
He made but *one* suggestion:
"Make sure and WORM them."
With that, he put away his gear, got into his shiny
truck, waved and headed back to their office.
Yeppers,
every day is an adventure.