Plum And Knuckles

We had one more special delivery before all the snow vanished. Plum has delivered quite a few calves over the years, she is not considered old but her younger years are well past. She is a cow that knows what she is doing and has strong ideas about how to do things.

While the hillside is a slippery, gooey mess with snow still melting and lots of mud everywhere, Plum made her way up a steep slope to a small plateau to go into labor and deliver her calf. It was a big one. We prefer to have calves that are between 60 to 80 lbs at birth and purchase our herd sire to ‘throw’ small calves. Sometimes genetics change things up, and when the DNA is just right, a bull with small calf tendencies produce a bruiser of a baby and that is what was going on with Plum.

We noticed her gone from the main herd at dinner time and assumed she headed uphill out of the mud. I went to the left and up, Mike started up the right side of the hill. I found Plum in a small grove of thickly spaced 40 year old fir trees in a relatively flat area. Her calf was big and really muddy from struggling to stand up. As Mike was on his way to the area I started to get the pair off the hillside. The baby seemed to be having an issue with his front legs. The first joints, what would be considered the ankle, on both the right and left side were not flexing and the calf was having trouble straightening them enough to get his hooves flat on the ground. The uneven ground and mud everywhere was quite a hindrance as well.

With the sun going down and darkness enveloping the forest, Mike and I continued moving the pair down the hill slipping on mud and dodging trees as we slid. Most of the time we were dragging the stunned calf while Plum circled us with frantic displeasure. Mike had a miss-step and wish-boned himself with a leg on each side of a tree while sliding down a slope. I was trying to get to him, but slid past just as the calf had done seconds before. I scrambled back up and was able to grab a leg and lift it around the tree. Mike’s downward slide began again, this time he was backward without a chance of getting hung up on another tree but filling up the back of his pants and around his belt with the gooey mud as his shirt and coat slid up around his torso. He came to rest just inches from the muddy calf.

Mike was able to get the calf onto the front loader pallet of the tractor and I climbed on top to hold him in place while we moved slowly around to the barn yard and into the loafing area of the barn with Plum circling us the whole time. Once inside the barn we were able to clean the calf while Plum munched on hay. The baby’s ankles were stiff and swollen but seemed to be well formed. Massaging the legs a couple times a day while the calf learns to stretch the muscles and tendons should have the limbs in good working order within a few days to a week.

Once the baby was clean and dry he wanted to stand up to nurse. His front legs were real weak and would shake tremendously with his front ankles bent, but he was able to get around and with the help of us holding him in place was able to get some of the nourishment he needed to survive the night. He would try to straighten the legs but they would begin to shake so badly that he would buckle them again. Over the next two days he was able to ‘walk’ on his front knuckles in a stumbling, lurching manner but would go to nurse anytime he was hungry.

Massaging those joints by either Mike or myself has become a regimen several times a day and the calf is starting to unfurl his stiff legs. He can now walk with a step or two before the joints buckle. He has started associating the massaging with mealtime and doesn’t stay in place very long before jumping up and stumbling toward his mother for milk.

What a way to join the world for a big bull calf weighing 100 pounds! Welcome to the farm, Knuckles, born 1/7/22. Knuckles and Plum will be residents of the barn until the uneven and muddy areas of the farm are not a danger to the calf and he can walk and run correctly.