When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran
The past week has been full of new life and unfortunately loss.
Life on a farm can have very challenging moments that test your emotional strength.
Monday we had another birth....not a live birth.
The calf presented with her head only, both feet were bent back.
A normal birth will present with both feet and a nose..
The mother was a heifer, meaning this was her first calf.
The head was all the way out and the mother was contracting on the neck....the head was swollen and the mother was in distress.
In a situation like this you are supposed to push the head back inside the mother,find both feet and try to get them to present together, it is still a very high risk you will loose the calf.
After trying this we were able to get the calf but we knew she was gone before this.
A very sad reality of farming when you give a dead calf to her mother.
We believe it is proper to allow the mother time to mourn her loss and clean her calf,the mother did just that and when finished cleaning her calf she curled up next to her.
We buried the calf and moved the mother in with her mother so she could feel comfort.
A very sad start to the week but I'm happy we did not loose both the calf and mother.
Friday started out with tough decisions as well.
Our foundation cow Jessie,13, became ill, she developed acute mastitis in 3 of her 4 quarters.
Mastitis is inflammation and infection of the mammary gland.
Jessie was not doing well at all ,she was showing signs of depression,in pain,and producing nothing but a bloody fluid from the three teats that were extremely swollen.
After getting advise from our vet we had to make the decision on whether or not to have her put to rest.
The vet recommended this as her best option as the infection had ruined her three teats and weeks of antibiotics and pain meds would still likely lead to her death but at a slower drug out pace.
I felt horrible and sick to my stomach at his diagnosis.
I do not like making decisions on things like that,it is hard to look your darling Jessie in the eye and know what is truly best for her but feel so darn guilty for knowing it.
We made the decision to let her rest......
The bull calf that was born to her on the 18th is now a orphan.
Our Jersey cow Ginger has been blessed with enough milk and a great personality so she is now his nurse cow.
It only took a few times of trying for her to allow him to come up and nurse on his own, I'm not to sure her own bull calf finds this the best decision although he enjoys a play mate.
On March 23ed Jessie's daughter Lily gave birth to a little red heifer....maybe it was a sign.
So life this week on the farm has been hard to say the least.
Going to check the cows and not seeing my Jessie has been very tough.
