Elbow Deep

The last one was about piglets, so we'll stick with babies. Probably won't try to keep linking each one of these to the next, but for the moment.

Pulling calves is a troublesome thing. I only ever actually had to get my hands dirty with it a few times. A couple were DOA, but a couple made it. I remember the first one rather well.

The old man had recently gotten back into raising cattle. He had for a while long before I was born, but had stopped, then about the time I was 12 or so he bought a bunch of cows and a big ass Charolais bull. We had some issues with calves from that bull, if I remember correctly. A number of the cows, especially the heifers (if you don't know a heifer is a cow who has yet to have a baby. After that they're just a cow.) had difficult births. So by the time the instance I'm talking about here happened I had watched dad pull a few calves.

I occasionally went out to check the cows with dad, who did it every morning. One of the younger cows was about due and dad had seen her off by herself down in the bottom (read 'bottom' as small valley for those who might not know country terms for terrain. Maybe I'll do a post on the various ways to describe land.) the night before. We walked down to see if she had the baby and she was basically where he had seen her, in the corner of this little pasture off to the side of a big field. I remember walking up on her as she lay on the ground. Most times a cow will make a little nest or hole in some tall grass and give birth sorta secluded like. When we walked up to the cow there was big area, maybe like a twenty foot wide circle, where she had smashed down the grass. She had been moving around for a few hours probably, wallering in one spot and then pacing and laying down again as she struggled to have the baby. And by the morning she was about spent.

She didn't try and run or anything when we walked up to her, she was just plopped over on her side. Dad walked around to her backside and checked what was the trouble. Sometimes the calf is turned around backwards, and that's a bitch. This calf was the right way round, but instead of coming feet first one of his legs was folded back along his side, which makes his shoulders wide. There was one foot and a little bit of his snout sticking out. Dad reached in to see if he could feel what was wrong. He could and he tried to sort it out, but he couldn't get the other leg to right itself. That's when he turned to me.

I had little spindly arms, which might allow me to make the necessary adjustment, where the old man couldn't. Again I had seen him do this a few times and it usually consisted of just reaching in and tugging out the calf. So he grabbed the tail and held it out of the way, and I got down on my knees and slipped my hand alongside the calf's head inside the vagina. I was about up to my elbow when I felt the shoulder and was able to get a grip on the calf's leg. There wasn't much in the way of room to maneuver the leg in there, and after a minute of trying dad told me to stop. 'Can you get a grip on it?' was the next question, I could. He had brought some heavy twine with us and made a loop in one end and told me to slide it as far up the good leg as possible. I got it up above the elbow and cinched it tight.

Now the task was just to pull it out and hope that we didn't break both its front legs in the process. They have an apparatus that's made for pulling calves, I even think we had one, but not right then. With the cow tired and not exactly lucid on her side there, I reached way back up in there and grabbed the crimped leg as tight as I could with one hand and grabbed the protruding little hoof with the other. Dad hunched over the top of me with the twine in one hand, the other ready to guide the calf's head out. Then we just pulled on the sum'bitch. I remember having to sorta press the folded up leg tight against the little guys body as we inched him out. Once the head was out, and dad got a proper grip on the straight leg, the rest of the job wasn't too bad. When his second elbow came out we got the other leg facing forward and the little guy slipped right on out.

You ever see in nature shows about lions and wildebeest and shit, when the wildebeest or gazelles have a calf the little fella jumps right up and starts walking. Cows are usually about the same, but after the long ordeal that calf was about gone. Dad cleaned out his nose and mouth of all the nastiness that goes with birth, rubbed his chest and got his lungs going. And after about another ten minutes had the little thing stirring, but not quite on his feet. Dad prodded the young cow to get up and ushered her over to the baby. Instinct tends to overrule anything else and despite her being dead tired and sore as shit, I assume, she started licking him and cleaning him up herself. We hung around watching them for a bit longer until he finally got up on his wobbly legs and started to nurse. After that the young cow just eyeballed us until we headed back for the house.

That time was a positive outcome; doesn't always go that way. Stillborn births happen for various reasons. Or you help pull a calf and the momma won't nurse or take to the calf, in which case you raise the calf yourself. Having a bottle fed calf on occasion is fun, I mean they're cute and playful and it's something different for a couple months. But hopefully you get the babe out alive and the old cow does what she's supposed to do.

Now I want to say I got back to the house and jumped in the shower, but most likely we just rinsed off at the well, changed shirts and went about the rest of the day.