This Way To My Blog

This Way To My Blog

Friday, October 8, 2010

An Old Cow Friend

This morning we ran across an old cow who has a story to tell or I have a story to tell about her. This old cow looked poorly so John let me out to feed the turtles while he went to the grain tank to get cubes to feed to the poor cow. The turtles were sluggish because the water was cool and the green stuff was thick on the water. Most of them didn't even get out of bed (mud). Anyway we took the cubes and John had to run several calves off so she could eat. The story about her is several years ago when she was younger she was due to have a calf but we hadn't seen her so we went out to look for her. As we drove slowly along I spotted something strange looking in the sand and hot sun. I ask John what it was. He stopped and got out to walk over and saw that it was a naked calf. Born with no hair. Wet pink from the sun and yucky. I said what are you going to do with it? Put in on your lap and take it to his daughter's house. Whoee just what I wanted to hold but I did. She tried to feed it with a bottle and put it in a shady safe place. We went to the thrift store and bought a baby bonnet and a shirt and his daughter dressed it up. She called a news station in San Antonio who was doing feature stories. They were coming out to do a story and take pictures but didn't say when. We had to be at a doctor appointment the next morning. When we got home the employees at the little store on the corner told us the news media was out looking for us so we called them back. They were going to come again but in the mean time the little calf died. Probably born too early as it didn't have any hair at all. The mama has normal calves since.

11 comments:

Martha said...

Poor thing and poor mama cow too.
Have a great weekend Paula :-)

jack69 said...

AS you have told us many times there is fun and also heart break with cows.

Animals and humans are a lot a like when they get old. No matter what happened in their youth, they are just old now. The world today keeps asking the question, "BUT what have you done for the world today?"

What ever it is, it is never enough.

Take care. You have a way of making a story live, thanks.

Lucy said...

What an interesting entry. I agree with Jack's last line on his comment. There is fun and heart break in all section of life. One more question about a rattlesnake , when they do bite the cows do the cows die or is their something in their body that that makes it immune to snake bites??

Leilani Schuck Weatherington said...

Thanks for your most recent comment on my blog about the whirligig beetles. Here, "stock tank" means a large galvanized metal "tub" to hold water for livestock, and I couldn't figure out how you were keeping turtles alive in a metal watering tank

Anonymous said...

well LOL...I have caught up with all the news of cows, bady bulls, and turtles...and of course the "rattlesnake"...I guess the good Lord knows what he is doing when he put you in Texas and me in Ohio LOLOL...cause I am definitely not a "country" girl...city born, city bred, and citified all the way home LOL...hugs to ya

Anonymous said...

opps....that should be BABY Bulls....not bady LOLOL

Lisa said...

So sad about that baby cow....

~mel said...

I imagine that calf was born too soon ~ where it's hair hadn't time to develop yet; but I bet it a little freaky looking. Poor bugger ... but glad the cow had normal calves after that one incident.

Gerry said...

As the daughter of a cattle rancher who every spring would take a trip to his winter range to bring home cows especially young heifers who were due to calve and looked poorly, I relate to this entry. They weren't as good at finding feed as the older more experienced cows. I sometimes wondered how he could tell when a heifer was doing poorly, but then they started to run you could see them shake. They were weak. It was always inspiring to take a trip with a man so concerned about the welfare of his stock, which I thought was the mark of a good cattleman. Right next door to caring about the welfare of his family, too.

Toon said...

Awww. Poor thing. I don't ever remember seeing such a thing in all my years growing up on a cattle farm.

Lori said...

Poor little baby.