The other morning when the phone rang at around 8am, I knew it would be my friend Janet with a cow issue...either someone was out or calving trouble. Well, it was a newborn steer calf just about frozen. It was about 20 degrees and his mom did not seem to want to nurse him. His eyes were starting to roll back into his head.
I do not know where the strength came from, I guess the adrenalin kicked in.....I just scooped him up and put him in the back of Janet's SUV. We took him to her house and got him covered in blankets and towels. Massaging and drying him off while electric heaters helped to warm him.
His poor little hooves were SO cold! I kissed and nuzzled his head to my neck, slowly his shivers quelled. Then some colostrum was heated and he took a full quart! That was GREAT news! He wanted to survive! We then moved him to a small room to lie down and rest.
Around mid day, Janet's son isolated the mom in a pen and carried the calf (I named him Ricky) to see if she would nurse. Ricky was hungry! YES!!! he pounced with happiness and his mom let him nurse right away! Thank you for happy endings :)
I am so blessed that I am able to help. For me there is not a better joy than to be able to look into those HUGE dark eyes with those lovely eyelashes and know that a little calf will be all right.
ps....the photo above is of another calf I helped years ago. I did not have time to grab my camera for Ricky.
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