Post by DoubleD on Jan 14, 2014 1:11:18 GMT -5
After reading Gracie's story, we wanted to share the story of our little Athena...and hopefully add some pics and vids, soon, too 
As we mentioned in our intro, we didn't realize that the cow in the cow/calf pair that we bought was pregnant. Our initial herd was Tinney Doyle (bred cow), Josephine, Petra and Crystal (heifers), and Wonder Woman and Xena (cow/calf pair). When we selected them in January of 2013, we knew that Tinney was pregnant, but as far as we knew, that was it. After juggling the arrival date of the the herd, there was a rumour that Wonder Woman may also have been exposed earlier, and could potentially be pregnant, too. When the herd arrived, Tinney was definitely the matriarch, with Wonder Woman a clear second, although she rarely asserted herself, spending most of her time caring for Xena.
The first property that we were using when the cows arrived was on a "farm" with owners who had no idea what to do with a farm, and were looking for a way to replenish their hay fields. It turns out, the farmer who had been haying their fields was complaining that the quality of the hay he had taken the previous season was terrible and he wanted them to reseed for him. We explained that we could get the quality back up in a safe and natural way, just by using cattle. We started with chickens a few weeks before the cows, and the family there was loving their antics and they had fun helping us feed them and looking for eggs. When the herd first arrived, they really seemed to enjoy having the cattle there as well. Unfortunately the herd hadn't even been there 3 weeks when the owners asked us to leave...and they didn't want to go into details about why (in fact, they told us by txt, on the evening of the start of our Victoria Day Weekend).
So, we went in search of a new location for the herd. We found 2 potential locations, but only one of which was going to be available quickly...the other would have to wait until the fall.
Mid-June saw us packing up the herd (in a crazy debacle led by our new "colleague", a gentleman who felt his cattle experience was sooo much better than ours, even though he didn't know that Dexters are GREAT runners), and hauling them out to a new location. And the next day, our new colleague brought out part of his own hodge-podge herd, and tossed them into our paddock (even though we had expressly stated that the herds were to run separately). What ensued was a bit of a beat-down by our girls on all but one member of the other herd. Tinney lost only one battle, and it was with the lone Highland Cow...our girls completely dominated the rest of the herd until the other gentleman's Hereford bull arrived...although for the most part, Bruce just watched the girls duke it out around him. We "covertly" separated the herds the next day (it's wonderful having such a smart herd, that we had trained to slip under poly-wire in daily paddock moves), and kept them that way for our remainder of our stay on that property. It appears that in that while the herds were combined, Wonder Woman had stopped nursing Xena. We assumed this was due to the stress of the situation, since we saw Xena back on the teat later on the day of the separation.
About a week later (10 days from the date of the move), Hubby arrived to do the evening watering, and to check if an extra paddock move would be needed that day. It turns out he got there only moments after Wonder Woman had given birth. 1301 was having trouble getting up, and Wonder Woman was giving her a thorough tongue bath. By the time I made it out there, about 10 mins later, she was already up and on her feet. Unfortunately, I let my better judgement lapse, and I slipped into the paddock to get some newborn pics. Wonder Woman gave me a few horn shakes, and took a few aggressive steps towards me. I attempted to step back, and tripped in a rut. The calf ran out in front of WW, and so WW took a few more aggressive steps towards me, with some more intimidating head shakes. Again, I attempted to get out of the way, but fell in another rut. As I was regaining my footing, the calf ran in between us again, and as WW moved toward me this time, the calf went down. We couldn't tell if it was because she fell in a rut, or if she had been trampled by WW. I managed to hop out of the paddock, but we watched from just outside for any sign of life from the calf. It looked like she was a goner, and I felt horrible for the part I had played.
Luckily, from our external vantage point, we were finally able to see a bit of twitching, and she did get back on her feet. We decided to let her Momma take care of her, and we went home to feed our boys.
Two days later, we were worried that 1301 wasn't nursing properly. Hubby had noticed that Xena was still on Wonder Woman, so we weren't sure how much milk the calf was actually getting. We knew she had at least gotten some colostrum, but beyond that, we weren't sure. I prepped a bottle of CMR, called on a friend with significant cattle experience, and headed out to the herd. When we got there, we discovered that she wasn't in the paddock. We found her in another rut just outside the polywire and assumed she had accidentally slipped under while in the rut, and couldn't get back in. When we found her she was badly dehydrated and extremely weak. At that point, I picked her up and carried her over to the car, where we got about a litre of CMR into her.
But we had to figure out how to get 1301 back with Wonder Woman, and keep Xena out. The pasture that we were on didn't offer much. There was a bit of a barn-like structure, but it was a fair way away from where the herd was currently, and we didn't think we would be able to get Wonder Woman to leave the herd and go to it. In the end, we used the polywire to create a small little paddock attached to the main paddock, and put the calf in it, enticing WW to join her. She did, and Xena tried as well, but we managed to cut her off. She was very displeased, but we thought, for the time-being that we had turned the situation around.
Another two days later, and we were out for another afternoon check on the herd...only to discover the calf was missing again. This time we couldn't find her just outside her mother's paddock. Instead we found her all the way across the main paddock and another 10 feet past. It was a harrowing search and it was hard not to lose hope. As soon as we found her, we tried to get more CMR into her, but she wouldn't really take. We changed the paddock, and allowed WW back in with the group, and drove back to our house with the calf on my lap (with a small detour through an A&W drive-thru, totally freaking out the girl at the window).
We set up a dog crate and a large mat in our living room, and broke out the baby bottles we had used with our own boys. The smaller nipples seemed much more agreeable to her, and she quickly took a litre. Over the next 24 hours, we bottle-fed 1301 about every 4 hours, and used a cloth to stimulate her bowel movements. After that we switched to every 6 hours, and we allowed her to go out in the back yard during the day...hoping our neighbours wouldn't notice. We hopped on the scale while holding her and discovered that, at a week old, she was only 25lbs. A couple of quick calls back to the owner of the herd from which her Momma came, and we were told that they had never had a calf that small on their farm, and, given the date of her Momma's bull exposure, she must have been about 6 weeks premature. After several days we noticed her getting weak again, and we realized that her stool was exceptionally runny again. As far as we could tell, she had scours. Hubby tried a few "natural" remedies and we aren't sure if they helped or hindered. But after she had been at our place for almost a week, we had a night that almost ended it for our poor little fighter. In an attempt to give her electrolytes, without having access to a store, we tried to slip her some salt water. She was still trying to suckle, so, against better judgement, we started giving her another bottle of CMR afterward. Part way through that bottle, her eyes suddenly opened wide, she shuddered and literally toppled over sideways with he legs sticking out stiff and straight, and her belly was horribly swollen. Again, we thought she was a goner. That was a LOOOONG night. Initially we just kept trying to massage her belly and pass some of the gas building up, as well as keeping her diaphragm moving. I stayed up the whole night holding her. Every time she stopped breathing, I gave her a good nudge.
Around 8am she was back on her feet, albeit VERY shaky. And we had made arrangements with our cattle friend to bring the calf out to her horse stable, with the hopes of bringing WW there as well. The calf liked the spacious stable over the dog crate, and the front lawn of the stables over our tiny back yard. At this point, we still hadn't named her, but we were considering Athena. We were planning an "A" name, and our friend had commented the day we first found her and gave her a bottle, that we should go with Athena, as she was a Warrior Goddess, and this little one seemed to be a fighter. While at the stable, we were able to start a small course of antibiotics, as we noticed a small abrasion on her eye. Without our friend, we wouldn't have even been able to do that much.
All the while that 1301 had been at our house, we noticed Wonder Women's udders starting to get really engorged. It turns out that, two days of separation was enough to make Xena lose interest. So the day after we moved the calf to the stable, we had a wonderful afternoon attempting to wrangle WW into a trailer without an actual corral, and using mainly polywire to guide her and contain the herd. It was an interesting adventure, to say the least, and Hubby and I learned a LOT that day. We got WW into her own stall at the stables. Our friend tossed a rope around WW's horns, and hubby held her tight against a wall of the stall while she very grudgingly allowed us to manually unplug her teats. At that point we attempted to put the calf back in with her. WW charged the calf and we managed to slip her back out. The next day was Canada Day. We roped poor WW again, and I got in to manually milk her. My technique was thoroughly lacking, and WW was really not happy with me. She was somewhat more relaxed, though, as the pressure on her udders had been alleviated somewhat. We brought the calf back in, and slipped her onto a teat. WW allowed her to nurse for quite a while. Our friend took her little guy off to watch the fireworks, and we hung out in the stable. We had one more terrifying moment when WW flipped the calf through the air, and she landed on her side and didn't even twitch for about 5 minutes. She eventually recovered, and when we left she was curled up in the hay getting some rest. But, from that point on, WW had her calf back and wouldn't let us anywhere near her.
Several days later we, we started calling her Athena, after the Goddess of Heroic Endeavours.
As we mentioned in our intro, we didn't realize that the cow in the cow/calf pair that we bought was pregnant. Our initial herd was Tinney Doyle (bred cow), Josephine, Petra and Crystal (heifers), and Wonder Woman and Xena (cow/calf pair). When we selected them in January of 2013, we knew that Tinney was pregnant, but as far as we knew, that was it. After juggling the arrival date of the the herd, there was a rumour that Wonder Woman may also have been exposed earlier, and could potentially be pregnant, too. When the herd arrived, Tinney was definitely the matriarch, with Wonder Woman a clear second, although she rarely asserted herself, spending most of her time caring for Xena.
The first property that we were using when the cows arrived was on a "farm" with owners who had no idea what to do with a farm, and were looking for a way to replenish their hay fields. It turns out, the farmer who had been haying their fields was complaining that the quality of the hay he had taken the previous season was terrible and he wanted them to reseed for him. We explained that we could get the quality back up in a safe and natural way, just by using cattle. We started with chickens a few weeks before the cows, and the family there was loving their antics and they had fun helping us feed them and looking for eggs. When the herd first arrived, they really seemed to enjoy having the cattle there as well. Unfortunately the herd hadn't even been there 3 weeks when the owners asked us to leave...and they didn't want to go into details about why (in fact, they told us by txt, on the evening of the start of our Victoria Day Weekend).
So, we went in search of a new location for the herd. We found 2 potential locations, but only one of which was going to be available quickly...the other would have to wait until the fall.
Mid-June saw us packing up the herd (in a crazy debacle led by our new "colleague", a gentleman who felt his cattle experience was sooo much better than ours, even though he didn't know that Dexters are GREAT runners), and hauling them out to a new location. And the next day, our new colleague brought out part of his own hodge-podge herd, and tossed them into our paddock (even though we had expressly stated that the herds were to run separately). What ensued was a bit of a beat-down by our girls on all but one member of the other herd. Tinney lost only one battle, and it was with the lone Highland Cow...our girls completely dominated the rest of the herd until the other gentleman's Hereford bull arrived...although for the most part, Bruce just watched the girls duke it out around him. We "covertly" separated the herds the next day (it's wonderful having such a smart herd, that we had trained to slip under poly-wire in daily paddock moves), and kept them that way for our remainder of our stay on that property. It appears that in that while the herds were combined, Wonder Woman had stopped nursing Xena. We assumed this was due to the stress of the situation, since we saw Xena back on the teat later on the day of the separation.
About a week later (10 days from the date of the move), Hubby arrived to do the evening watering, and to check if an extra paddock move would be needed that day. It turns out he got there only moments after Wonder Woman had given birth. 1301 was having trouble getting up, and Wonder Woman was giving her a thorough tongue bath. By the time I made it out there, about 10 mins later, she was already up and on her feet. Unfortunately, I let my better judgement lapse, and I slipped into the paddock to get some newborn pics. Wonder Woman gave me a few horn shakes, and took a few aggressive steps towards me. I attempted to step back, and tripped in a rut. The calf ran out in front of WW, and so WW took a few more aggressive steps towards me, with some more intimidating head shakes. Again, I attempted to get out of the way, but fell in another rut. As I was regaining my footing, the calf ran in between us again, and as WW moved toward me this time, the calf went down. We couldn't tell if it was because she fell in a rut, or if she had been trampled by WW. I managed to hop out of the paddock, but we watched from just outside for any sign of life from the calf. It looked like she was a goner, and I felt horrible for the part I had played.
Luckily, from our external vantage point, we were finally able to see a bit of twitching, and she did get back on her feet. We decided to let her Momma take care of her, and we went home to feed our boys.
Two days later, we were worried that 1301 wasn't nursing properly. Hubby had noticed that Xena was still on Wonder Woman, so we weren't sure how much milk the calf was actually getting. We knew she had at least gotten some colostrum, but beyond that, we weren't sure. I prepped a bottle of CMR, called on a friend with significant cattle experience, and headed out to the herd. When we got there, we discovered that she wasn't in the paddock. We found her in another rut just outside the polywire and assumed she had accidentally slipped under while in the rut, and couldn't get back in. When we found her she was badly dehydrated and extremely weak. At that point, I picked her up and carried her over to the car, where we got about a litre of CMR into her.
But we had to figure out how to get 1301 back with Wonder Woman, and keep Xena out. The pasture that we were on didn't offer much. There was a bit of a barn-like structure, but it was a fair way away from where the herd was currently, and we didn't think we would be able to get Wonder Woman to leave the herd and go to it. In the end, we used the polywire to create a small little paddock attached to the main paddock, and put the calf in it, enticing WW to join her. She did, and Xena tried as well, but we managed to cut her off. She was very displeased, but we thought, for the time-being that we had turned the situation around.
Another two days later, and we were out for another afternoon check on the herd...only to discover the calf was missing again. This time we couldn't find her just outside her mother's paddock. Instead we found her all the way across the main paddock and another 10 feet past. It was a harrowing search and it was hard not to lose hope. As soon as we found her, we tried to get more CMR into her, but she wouldn't really take. We changed the paddock, and allowed WW back in with the group, and drove back to our house with the calf on my lap (with a small detour through an A&W drive-thru, totally freaking out the girl at the window).
We set up a dog crate and a large mat in our living room, and broke out the baby bottles we had used with our own boys. The smaller nipples seemed much more agreeable to her, and she quickly took a litre. Over the next 24 hours, we bottle-fed 1301 about every 4 hours, and used a cloth to stimulate her bowel movements. After that we switched to every 6 hours, and we allowed her to go out in the back yard during the day...hoping our neighbours wouldn't notice. We hopped on the scale while holding her and discovered that, at a week old, she was only 25lbs. A couple of quick calls back to the owner of the herd from which her Momma came, and we were told that they had never had a calf that small on their farm, and, given the date of her Momma's bull exposure, she must have been about 6 weeks premature. After several days we noticed her getting weak again, and we realized that her stool was exceptionally runny again. As far as we could tell, she had scours. Hubby tried a few "natural" remedies and we aren't sure if they helped or hindered. But after she had been at our place for almost a week, we had a night that almost ended it for our poor little fighter. In an attempt to give her electrolytes, without having access to a store, we tried to slip her some salt water. She was still trying to suckle, so, against better judgement, we started giving her another bottle of CMR afterward. Part way through that bottle, her eyes suddenly opened wide, she shuddered and literally toppled over sideways with he legs sticking out stiff and straight, and her belly was horribly swollen. Again, we thought she was a goner. That was a LOOOONG night. Initially we just kept trying to massage her belly and pass some of the gas building up, as well as keeping her diaphragm moving. I stayed up the whole night holding her. Every time she stopped breathing, I gave her a good nudge.
Around 8am she was back on her feet, albeit VERY shaky. And we had made arrangements with our cattle friend to bring the calf out to her horse stable, with the hopes of bringing WW there as well. The calf liked the spacious stable over the dog crate, and the front lawn of the stables over our tiny back yard. At this point, we still hadn't named her, but we were considering Athena. We were planning an "A" name, and our friend had commented the day we first found her and gave her a bottle, that we should go with Athena, as she was a Warrior Goddess, and this little one seemed to be a fighter. While at the stable, we were able to start a small course of antibiotics, as we noticed a small abrasion on her eye. Without our friend, we wouldn't have even been able to do that much.
All the while that 1301 had been at our house, we noticed Wonder Women's udders starting to get really engorged. It turns out that, two days of separation was enough to make Xena lose interest. So the day after we moved the calf to the stable, we had a wonderful afternoon attempting to wrangle WW into a trailer without an actual corral, and using mainly polywire to guide her and contain the herd. It was an interesting adventure, to say the least, and Hubby and I learned a LOT that day. We got WW into her own stall at the stables. Our friend tossed a rope around WW's horns, and hubby held her tight against a wall of the stall while she very grudgingly allowed us to manually unplug her teats. At that point we attempted to put the calf back in with her. WW charged the calf and we managed to slip her back out. The next day was Canada Day. We roped poor WW again, and I got in to manually milk her. My technique was thoroughly lacking, and WW was really not happy with me. She was somewhat more relaxed, though, as the pressure on her udders had been alleviated somewhat. We brought the calf back in, and slipped her onto a teat. WW allowed her to nurse for quite a while. Our friend took her little guy off to watch the fireworks, and we hung out in the stable. We had one more terrifying moment when WW flipped the calf through the air, and she landed on her side and didn't even twitch for about 5 minutes. She eventually recovered, and when we left she was curled up in the hay getting some rest. But, from that point on, WW had her calf back and wouldn't let us anywhere near her.
Several days later we, we started calling her Athena, after the Goddess of Heroic Endeavours.
