Scours and other fun stuff

Nicole and I helped Glenn doctor his calves last week.  We have 11 calves right now plus Nicole's bottle calf.  Sadly, we've lost a lot of calves this year to various problems (bitter cold weather, broken back, and other calamities).  We've had 9 or more die.  I've lost track.  It's too depressing to think about when weanling calves are selling for about $700 or more right now.  You do the math.  Ouch.  There are another 8 cows who haven't calved yet.  They're either not pregnant or were bred much later than the others.  Ahh, the joys and unpredictabilities of raising cattle.

Anyway, a few of the calves had this delightful malady called scours.  As in, their intestines are regularly "scoured" of all contents.  The ensuing diahrrea is white, prolific and STINKY!  Oddly, they still feel well enough to run away so to doctor them, it's necessary to corral them, pin them down and force a pill or two down their throats.  It's all very fun.  Really.

 Here are the cute little calves.  Just like pigs, they get les cute and cuddly-looking as they grow.  They are separated from their mamas.  They don't like it.

Here are the mamas.  They're not happy either.  They mill about mooing loudly.  And I mean LOUDLY.  They don't like it one bit that we are man-handling their babies.

The youngest calf was treated to a take-down.  She didn't like it much and put up a good fight, but alas, Glenn won. The calves all got ear tags and scours medicine.  One sad little calf is still recovering from pneumonia and sounds just awful.  She got another dose of antibiotic.  Hopefully she lives.  We can't affort to lose any more.

This was Glenn's and my trusty assistant and her sidekick (her bottle calf who was very curious of our activities).  Nicole really was helpful.  She held the ear tagger when we weren't using it and handed us the scours medicine.  Once upon a time she thought she wanted to be a vet, but now she's doubtful that she could handle the blood and guts.  I bet she'd be good at it.  She enjoyed helping us.  The other two children wisely stayed home and watched TV.  It was very cold (low to mid 30s).   The mooing mama cows would've disturbed them.  They would've been ready to go home 2 minutes after we started.  Nicole never complained.  This is her thing.

This is the one and only white-faced calf that we have this year.  He's pretty cute.  Nicole took this picture of him while he was pushed up against the fence so Glenn could doctor him.  I was leaning against a metal panel meant to pin the calf against the fence.  I say meant because sometimes my efforts seemed futile.  Even when I pushed with all my might, I felt like I could hardly hold them there.  They're tough little buggers.  I wish I had a picture of Glenn being tossed around when he was trying to push one calf over to our doctoring area.  The calf spun around (with Glenn hanging on) about 5 times.  I was pretty sure that calf was going to win this struggle, but Glenn held strong.  If it had been an "8 second ride" I think Glenn would've gotten a good score!