Stay in Missouri

Stay in Missouri

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This is a similar style of gate, but on track through a neighbors land. It had rained the day before and so the truck had slipped a little and left ruts even on that mild incline. The day that Martin left we moved one of the herd into a pasture that was accessable on this road, but he hadn't had time to walk the fence along the pasture to make sure the fence was still up after the winter (winds and ice knocking down trees and taking down the fence). So, first thing I did was drive down here to walk the fence.
As I was driving on highway 149 (runs through Martin's pastures) to get to the neighbor's tract, I passed this gate to a really overgrown pasture (rented) where we had cattle a few days before. However, I noticed that there was a light brown cow at the gate. I didn't find any holes in the fence for their current pasture, but concluded that we must have left a cow behind when we moved them a couple of days ago (not hard to do being so overgrown).
When I drove back later that morning, the cow was gone from the gate, which was just as well as I didn't know which gates led on to their current pasture. That afternoon when I was mowing this field, I stopped for a break along the road (Colorado avenue) and saw what looked like the same cow in the pasture across the creek/ditch here. We decided to leave her until Martin was back as we thought there was a pond in her current pasture (actually it was the last pasture before this one, but there was enough water in the ditch for one cow).
When Martin got back on the 18th, we moved the herd again, but went back two pastures and found her waiting at the gate. She waited patiently when Bev opened the gate and then followed me all the way through two pastures and gates to the current pasture. She wasn't at all skittish so we figure she got lonely after several days of foraging on her own. Here she is going past me in the current pasture as she goes to hang out with the rest of the herd.
I was mowing the afternoon of the 17th (last day Martin was away) and took a break under this lovely tree. It was so pretty I turned off the tractor so I could appreciate the peaceful setting. However, when I tried to start the tractor, it wouldn't start. Sounded like a bad starter (fat spin with no load). What to do? I left the tractor there and had to walk back about a mile.
When Martin got back we pulled the started to have it fixed. Here is Martin working on the tractor. We also fixed the throttle while we were at it. Before you had to manually release the throttle after the engine started, but in pulling the throttle cable, we noticed that the casing of the cable was loose. When we crimped it back, it worked fine. One problem down.
We took the starter to a little garage/shop outside of Kirksville where a guy specializes in repairing and rebuilding starters and alternators/generators. He wasn't in the day we dropped it off, but he fixed it in a couple of days (connector to bushing was loose) and we were all set. Back to mowing fields which is most satisfying.
The evening when Martin was due back, Bev and I went to check the herd with young calves and cows due very shortly. 662 was off to the side and looking strange with really engorged udders and looking pretty thin. She seemed to be watching us expectantly, looking for help. We were suspicious and followed her down to the woods next to the ditch where she started mooing at the wire toward the ditch. We got out of the truck and looked in the ditch. Here is the area where she was mooing.
We heard a calf weakly bawling and looked down into the ditch (shown here). The calf was in a puddle at the very bottom of the ditch. The ditch started out pretty shallow (2 feet deep) but got to over eight feet deep within 12 feet in series of two foot drops. I carried him (neither Bev or checked the sex, but Martin remembered to when he got back) out of the ditch and over the wire. He only weighed about 70 pounds and was pretty weak, so it wasn't too bad. 662 was very happy to see her calf. After they sniffed for a bit, the calf wasn't able to feed himself, so we put the calf in my lap on the back of the truck and his mom followed us back to the barn.
Here is a picture of 662 and her calf in the yard (when I could get my camera). They sniffed a lot, but the calf could hardly stand and couldn't get a good suck on his mom's engorged udders. Her tits were almost as large as the large end of a baseball bat (not really clear here) which was probably the original problem. 662's milk had come in a couple of weeks ago so we expected her to deliver any day and was a lot later than expected.
Bev and I got 662 into the chute in the barn. Bev had used the levers before, but there are a lot of them and we barely figured them out enough to catch 662 before she dashed out. Then Bev took off the side panels so that 662's calf could get to her udders.
Here is a short video (120K file, about 40 second download) of Bev trying to help 662's calf feed. That didn't work.	If your browser is not set up to show movies you will get an error dialog box instead of a player and can just press cancel.
So Bev milked one of the udders into a bottle for feeding to the calf. Once the tit was of more managable size, I held the calf up while Bev held the tit for the calf and the calf was able to feed itself. Then Bev and I pumped out the other three udders. The milk turned a little pink, which indicated that 662 had mastitous (an infection of the udder). Calves often overeat at first and then get sick, so just nursing on one tit was probably best. Martin later named this alf Patches because one eye had a black area around it.
Once 662's calf had been fed, it was able to stand and try to feed itself on its own. Whew, that was a long day. With the lonely cow, broken tractor, and calf in ditch, Bev and I had lots of problems during Martin's short trip.
The morning Martin got back, he helped pump out the excess milk and feed Patches as 662 was engorged again and Patches was looking hungry and not able to feed on his own. Martin gave 662 antibiotics on the advice of the vet. The pink in the milk cleared up in about three days, but the assisted feeding continued for about five of days until Patches started feeding on his own. Fortunately mostly calves don't need this kind of help. 662 had similar porblems with her last calf and probably won't have another calf with Martin and Bev.