I heart Jane

Della’s latest gift.

Thanks so much for all the good thoughts coming Della’s way.  She is hanging in there, and Jane is a delight.  There is something about baby cows that is so endearing.

It’s hard to explain the thoughts I have that surround the idea of home dairying.  I do know how much we missed having the baby calf to fuss over and train when Della lost her twins, we had two others to raise (Susie and Ty) but somehow it wasn’t the same.  We were all just a little sad.  It brings a different dimension to the daily chores because the home dairy is so important to the farmstead.  I always say the milker/milk cow relationship is not something to be entered into lightly.   Because there can be hard times.  This is one of them.  There are several schools of thought – make decisions based on pure economics or make them based on pure emotion.  I fall somewhere in between.

The short version is that Della started labor but didn’t progress, and was unable to get up.  I called the vet, he broke her water, and we pulled the calf.  She was showing a little bit of milk fever signs, so she got an IV of CMPK.  Temp is normal, she is eating, and she shouldn’t have any calving paralysis because the calf pulled fairly easy, and wasn’t in the birth canal.  But…

And here is where some might disagree.  Having livestock isn’t always the rosy picture that is presented in the story books.  I was raised with the culling mentality that when a cow fails to deliver a live calf, (for any reason) that is the omen to cut your losses.  Thinking with my heart last year for Della I made the decision to not cull her, and to rebreed her, gambling that I would be right, knowing that something like this could be the outcome.  Culling her was out of question for me, since that would be like sending Trace to the pound.  I cannot bring myself to do that.  But the other side of that is that I have to see her struggle at the end, and own my part in that.  Della is healthy to a point, but she is old.  I’m not into the dramatics of valiantly saving her, which may sound cruel, but animal ownership means also being responsible for the quality of life or death at the end too.  Sometimes they just don’t get back up, because they can’t and that is it.  She is getting food, water, constant attention, homeopathy, drenches, oral CMPK,  and conventional pain meds & steroids to help in case there is calving paralysis.   But I also have other cows that will be calving any day, Jane and many other things.  Blogging makes this worse, because it is another path I have went down that exposes a person’s vulnerability.  I feel as if you all know Della and are curious.  So I owe that to you as “friends” who have got to know her, to keep you informed.  But the other side of that is respect for my family and the decisions we have to make as a whole.  I wish Della could live forever, but like others before her she will go at sometime.  I am just not sure when that will be.  This is what buying your food from the store insulates you from.  Every day a farmer somewhere is making a decision and dealing with life or death like this.  Would I ever consider not drinking milk, or eating meat so I wouldn’t have to go through this?  Never.  Having livestock no matter what the outcome has enriched my life, and our land, I do not regret one minute I have ever spent any time raising livestock.  I abhor zoos, and do not want to live in one.  For them to live we must find a practical life for them.  Enough said – I hope.

Somethings did go right though.

Della passed the placenta completely within an hour.

She came into her milk.

Jane had her first drink, just moments after I milked.

And I have been able to milk her some each day.