Bringing in the Babies - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

Tagging Calves With The Rancher

April 2, 2014 by Allison

When our calves are about a day old, we head out to tag them. Our process is pretty simple- tag the left ear if it’s a heifer, right if it’s a bull. The Rancher just told me, “Just remember HEFT and BRIGHT and you’ll always have it right.” Wow… The tag number matches the cow’s number so that we can keep the pairs straight. I wish cows could read so they would know which baby was theirs…

Every ranch has their own thing when it comes to tagging. On the ranch that I grew up on we had the sire (the bull) number and the cow number on the tag with the calf’s number. There were different colored tags depending on the breed of calf. It made it quick and easy to know just who that calf was. There are lots of other ways ranchers use their tags to mark their cattle.

When we tag bulls, we also castrate them. We use an elastrator to do the job. Sounds high tech, right? It’s not. It just stretches the rubber band like elastic (they actually look like a green cheerio) so that we can get it over the scrotum. You hear all sorts of names for the elastics- bands, cheerios, and my favorite… goonie whoppers! The younger a calf is when it is castrated, the better they will handle and recover from the stress. For the most part, using the elastrator is stress free because it slowly pinches off the blood supply to the testes.

Going out to tag is a one man job, but if you have two it’s certainly easier (and brining kids along just makes it extra exciting). One guy drives the 4 wheeler and the other grabs the calf. When I go out with The Rancher, it’s my job to catch the calf. The Rancher brings over the supplies and gets to work. He checks the gender, tags, and castrates the bulls. That’s it.

If The Rancher’s Sidekick comes, he usually has his rope and in the time it takes to tag the calf, he’s got him tied up. It’s had to convince him that he doesn’t have to rope EVERY calf… The Ranch Princess hangs out on the 4 wheeler trying to get it to go… I’m pretty sure that she has figured all but the gas out. We might have to start turning it off when we stop. Who knows where she would drive!

Tagging only takes a few minutes for us on the ranch, but they are moments well spent. The Rancher gets his calves marked, the kids have their fun, and I feel like a helpful rancher wife again!

A Little Fun WIth Some Fuzzy Chicks

March 26, 2014 by Allison

Oh what a terrific few days we have had here! The sun is shining like it belongs! No cloudiness, no showers, yes wind… but we can put up with it. I have been out getting my little vegetable patch all ready to plant (a second little garden plot… because one garden is never enough!). Yes, I don’t plan to plant for a while, but I will be ready when its time!

Sunshine, gardening- this can only mean one thing… SPRING IS HERE! I am acutally having mixed feelings about spring. Don’t get me wrong, I love spring. Love it! I have been cooped up with my kids in this house for far too long. But there is so much work to still get done in the house (I can never keep up with these mess makers!) and all I want to do is go outside. I’m in a dilemma- either I feel guilty when I am outside because there is housework to be done, or I am sad because I am inside NOT enjoying the sun.

I just go outside anyways!

Spending time on the ranch is precious and we never get tired of it. We hang out with The Rancher, we visit the horses and the milk cow. The Rancher’s Sidekick and I practice our roping on the grouchy, white dog (I’m the mom that roped the dog first… I probably shouldn’t be setting such a terrible example). And now we have a few extras friends to visit…

The fuzzy chicks!

Definitely another sign that spring is here! We have had these fellas for a while, but I have just neglected to share them with you. My bad!

On one of my grocery runs I convinced The Rancher to come along and that instantly turned my grocery trip into a ranch trip (no complaints here, though!). At the top of his list was picking up the new chicks at Ward Feed, our local feed store. We got there to find 20 little yellow, fuzzy chicks waiting for us!

The Rancher’s Sidekick was so excited for the little buggers! He insisted on carrying them, but I didn’t think his somewhat careless stroll to the truck would be a very good way to start his relationship with them. We comprimised by mom carrying the chicks and letting them sit by him.

All the way home we had a whole string of lovely “cheeps” from the backseat. The chicks peeped a little too…

Once we got home, the kids couldn’t wait to get the chicks out and play! I’ll admit, I’m not so brave with chickens (oh, ya… you know that already!) and so I only admired, not touched. But my kids were all over it. Maybe it was a little too much loving, but still loving indeed!

Happy spring from a few ranchers that like to pick up chicks!

A Good Day for a Haul: Taking the Heifers to Locomotive

March 25, 2014 by Allison

I’ve mentioned that we like to calve out our heifers on the ranch because they need a little more help. But at some point they need to make it down to Locomotive. The range is the ideal place to have the calves to avoid the sickness that can travel through a herd when they are close together. The whole kids-share-germs-like-candy concept isn’t just for kindergarteners. Instead of a ball to pass the gems around, it is usually the mud, the straw, or the trough. Being spread out on the range decreases the contact they have to other germs.

Eventually they will join the rest of the herd in the spring pasture, but when they first get to Locomotive they have their own range. We haul down a little unloading ramp and unload the heifers and calves right on the range.

Cows have a funny tendency to just take off and run when they get to new pasture. We like to hold them in a corral if one is available. If not, which was the case this time, we just unload a few at a time and circle around them to keep them put. This gives them a little time to mother up and find their calves before they take off.

Taking it slow to unload them might take a little longer, but it pays off to know that everything is paired up and ready to make it out on the range!

Roundup of Other Ranches: A Few Calving Stories Across the Country

March 19, 2014 by Allison

You might think that calving can get a little boring. We do the same thing every day for about two months. Check cows… check cows.. check cows… We see a new baby born, but hopefully they all follow the same process. And that happens every year. Sounds a little monotnous, right?

I’m here to tell you, folks, that it doesn’t get that way! Every morning I call The Rancher (because he usually doesn’t call me or stop by the house after checking cows) and ask about any new babies or if anything exciting is happening. We never get tired of seeing the little babies racing across the pasture or mommas giving a bath (I wonder how many licks it takes to get a calf clean… do you think its as many as it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop?!).

I especially never get tired of the calving stories. There are always stories of an overprotective momma that wants to eat you for lunch. When you hear about a grown man running for the fence, you know its a good story. Maybe I like to hear them because I can relate or I am just proud of what we (the whole herd of ranchers) do to be beef producers.

I’ve been following long with a few other ranch blogs that have had some great stories and pictures from calving over the years. Being the thoughtful and generous person I am, I thought I would share them with you too! Some are great documentaries of cows birthing, something is pretty hard to capture in its entirety because lets be honest, who really wants to have that interrupted with on watchers and photos? And a few are stories of getting creative when you are dealing with coyotes, cranky mommas, and cold calves!

1. Running of the Panels on JustARanchWife.com
2. Coyotes & Calving on Beef Matters
3. The Balling in the Basement on ConfessionsofaFarmWife.com
4. A baby is born! on KansasCattleRanch.blogspot.com
5. Calving 2010 on ClodhopperFarm.blogspot.com
6. Calving with Gwen Shepperson in Wyoming on TheSouthDakotaCowgirl.com

Happy 1 Month Birthday, 7!

March 18, 2014 by Allison

Babies grow so fast! Its amazing the changes that can happen in only one month! A baby calf is born and can hardly stand and then just a few weeks later you see them racing around the field. I’m glad that my babies don’t grow up so fast!

I had to find #7 and wish him a happy 1 month birthday. He was the the first baby born on the ranch this year. Because he was the first, he has a special place in our hearts. We couldn’t let his birthday pass by with out a shout out!

And we wanted to show you just how much he has changed. Ok, I know, these aren’t great pictures to see the changes but he really has grown a LOT! I think he didn’t want to listen when I told him to say cheese. I’m just happy that we have a picture of his face. I guess he’s like kids- too grown up and embarrassed for momma to have a picture to document the day. Or not willing (able?) to hold still long enough to get a good one!

And I won’t have many opportunities for pictures because we have taken him and his momma out to the range in Locomotive. He’s all grown up and off to new adventures! Maybe at branding time I will have a chance to give him a little pat…

The Cow With the Uterine Prolapse

March 12, 2014 by Allison

This happened a long time ago (well, just the beginning of the month but that seems SO long ago…). But it did… and I haven’t put up this post because I was scared. I didn’t know how you would take it.

You see there are days that it all goes wrong on the ranch. And we can’t turn away from it. We have to jump in to whatever mess there is. Even if it is a cow with a uterine prolapse.

Remember when I told you the story about that calf we tried to save when I was out on my morning run? Well the day didn’t end there. The momma heifer to that baby had some serious problems not long after. When we went to check her again we found that her uterus had prolapsed.

The heifer had been on her back and pushing for such a long time that morning. Between the pressure of the contractions and the pressure of her awkward situation, it was too much for her birth canal. With everything being stretched and weak, it was unable to keep the uterus from also being pushed out.

Is any of this making sense? I wish you could have been here to see her, because it would be a lot easier to show you than to just explain… But I’ll keep going.

So we saw she was in trouble. As much as we wished we could just do nothing and it would all go away, we knew it wouldn’t. In fact this was an emergency situation that needed IMMEDIATE help. To top it all off, Rancher Sr. was gone to watch Cowboy E at his wrestling tournament with all of the other help. I was the only help The Rancher had… And even though I am the best help he has ever had (hehe), this was more than what the two of us could do.

In fact, we wanted some professional help, like a vet. But vets are busy some days and can’t come. And a cow in this kind of a condition is not one to load up and take in. This meant it was up to us to fix it!

Luckily we have a neighbor that was home and able to come help. And as an added bonus, he had done this a few times so he knew a lot more than what we did. Phew…

The cow was already down from other birthing complications but we still had to do a sort of nerve block. This kept her from moving around or twitching her tail at us. It also worked as a pain block because I don’t know how lovely it would be to have three people pushing your insides back in.

Once we knew she was blocked we elevated her back legs and rear so that gravity could help out. And it also kept the uterus cleaner since it wasn’t on the ground any longer.

The next step was cleaning her uterus off. Its only the nice thing to do when you put a uterus back inside. Don’t worry, we had some heavy duty, yet gentle, disinfectant to do the job. We didn’t want anything to end up growing in there. We had to be careful to not get too rough as we worked. There are several massive raisen looking things lining the uterus called cotyledons (here is a look if you want more of an anatomy lesson). They are what provide the nutrients to the growing baby. If one of these is badly cut or torn, the cow could hemorrhage and die. So we tried to be careful…

That was all the easy part. With all of the prepping and cleaning we were finally ready to shove (with love) the uterus back in. Now image a bean bag the size of a large basketball being shoved into a hole the size of a grapefruit but weighs as much as a big bag of sugar. And add a half a bag more. That’s what we were doing. You would think that it would just slip back in… but it doesn’t.

My job was just to hold the uterus up. Just to keep it there to make it easier for the other guys to shove in. And they had the job of shoving, hard enough to gain ground but careful enough to not cause any damage. Occaisonally we would switch around and I would get shove. It was tough because as soon and I thought I was gaining ground and would pull my hand back to push again, everything that I had just pushed in with the last push would fall out. And then sometimes the heifer would push against us (because ouch!) and we would lose more ground.

It took us about 45 minutes of pushing and holding and working to finally get everything back inside. Ya know, where it belongs… (internal organs never do well outside the body). Our final step was to sew her up so it wouldn’t all come falling out again.

The Rancher had the honor of doing this. He had a sergical string that reminded me of a shoelace. Just remember that we are working on a big cow and she needs more than a few little stitches to keep her insides inside. Then he took a few hog rings (real technical, I know, but it works awesomely) and clamped them along the edge of the vulva. He threaded the string through the rings and cinched it up tight like a duffle bag. This would allow her to still pee and any discharge to go out, but not another prolapse.

With the work done, all that was left was to give her a shot to boost her immune system and let her go.

It seems so easy when I tell it to you, but I was so tired after it all. Especially my forearms, from holding her heavy, heavy uterus.

It was a learning experience for us, not one that everyone needs to learn. I highly recommend a vet to be the man in charge on this kind of a project. Other things I learned that day- 1, how to fix a prolapse (obviously), 2, that a tractor is a great way to elevate a cows backside, and 3, definitely wear work clothes for that kind of a job. And one other recommendation- make sure that your cow isn’t buy a busy road. Just think what those travelers were imagining!

Because the pictures are a little graphic and not all of you will want to see it… click “read more” for the photos.

I don’t have any pictures of the shoving part. My hands were kinda full… But you can imagine how it must of went going from the last picture to the next picture. It was almost like magic!

Calving Down South in Locomotive

March 7, 2014 by Allison

Every operation has its own calving process and the crucial chunk of ours is in the location. Locomotive is such an ideal place for our cows to calve because it only (ok, usually) gets little bits of snow. The weather is mild enough that there is still good range feed (aka grass) and warmer temperatures that we don’t have to worry about losing calves to the cold.

Being that it is out on the range, there are wide open spaces for the herd (channel your inner “Home on the Range” background music!). They can be spread out to make sure that the right momma and babies get paired up together. There are times when cows are bunched up too close that they try to claim another calf as their own. We tag them when we can, but since cows can’t read, it only helps us. I guess it doesn’t work like in the hospital when the momma and babies have matching bracelets!

Another plus of calving on the range is that it also helps to prevent sickness from spreading through all the calves. When the calves are so spread out, they have less contact with each other. When they have less contact, the germs don’t move from calf to calf so much. Just think of a kindergarten class of kids that are always wiping their runny noses on their neighbor. This is what we are avoiding! Young calves have young immune systems. And although they are building their immunity, especially through momma cow’s milk, we want to lesson their exposure as best we can.

Its a more of a hands off approach. When I was very first involved in the process I was sure that we weren’t doing enough and we were doomed to fail… But I was so wrong! We have incredible calving percentages every year. These are experienced momma’s that, with the right location, have babies without any problems. And then once the calves hit the ground, they just get growing!

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t put ‘hem out on the range and forget about them. We (read The Rancher and Rancher Sr.) ride through them nearly every day on the off-chance that there is something going hay-wire. But we certainly don’t wear ourselves out as if we calved all 600+ at home!

Roundup of Other Ranches: Calving in Cold Weather

March 5, 2014 by Allison

We have had such a mild winter which is AWESOME for calving. But that hasn’t been the case for everyone.

My old neighbors in Montana have really been having a hard time this last weekend. My dad was saying its the worst calving season they have had in 25 years. A town nearby was dealing with a wind chill of -68 degrees at night. That’s beyond brrr! That’s cold enough to freeze a baby’s nose even before he has been born. Not being able to keep all the babies and mommas out of the cold is like throwing money in the wind.

But my Montana friends aren’t the only ones dealing with the cold. Its a normal part of winter calving. Over the years we have all found things that help on those cold nights. We have our go to hot boxes or shelf ready ear warmers. We’ve learned when we need to bring a calf in or when to leave it with momma.

But don’t just take my word for it. Here are a few other ranchers that have been out fighting the cold.

1. Calving in the Cold on PincherCreekVoice.com

2. Baby Calves Will be Here Soon on KansasCattleRanch.blogspot.com

3. Ranch Snow Day: Calving Heifers on AgricultureProud.com

4. Calving Shed on BeefMatters.org

5. No Maternal Instinct on JustARanchWife.com

6. Warming Baby Calves on TalesOfAKansasFarmMom.blogspot.com

Suckling a Baby Calf

March 4, 2014 by Allison

A rancher takes on a lot of jobs on the ranch. That includes being the on-call lactation consultant.

There are a handful or reasons that calf has a hard time nursing. Some problems come from the cow not realizing that they have a calf to care for (you would think with all of the work they did to get that baby here they would stick around for the rest!). Others times momma just doesn’t want to let the calf suck and pushes him away (or kick and head butt).

But sometimes its the calf that is having issues. It could be because he doesn’t have the energy to do it. And then there are times the calf just doesn’t know what to do or where to go to get the milk.

This is when The Rancher comes to save the day!

Once again we head to the maternity pens and get the cow settled since she might be there for a bit. Our approach to help the calf depends on who’s the weak link (obviously). Just getting momma and baby in the pen together could be enough. But when its not we will put the cow in the head catch and hobble her legs to make it easy for the calf to nurse (without the hard love kicks).

If it is the calf not knowing how or not having the energy to nurse it means that there is a little more work for The Rancher. A good place to start is just pointing baby is the right direction and squirting a little milk in his mouth. If he doesn’t take the cue to start nursing… then we just keep trying.

One of The Rancher’s go-to strategies is to start the baby sucking on one of his fingers. Once the calf is sucking hard, he will slip in the cow’s teet. If he keeps sucking, we are good to go. But sometimes baby just doesn’t get it. And as the last resort we just milk the momma, bottle feed the baby and leave them in the maternity stall. There are times that doing less and giving them space is all they need.

Who new that The Rancher could be such a terrific lactation consultant?!

I Hate When Death Wins

February 28, 2014 by Allison

This isn’t the post I had intended to share with you today, but I just had to write this (maybe you’ll get a double dose of The Rancher’s Wife today!).

I hate death. And I hate that even though as hard as we try, we lose sometimes. I think I take it personally because it means that I wasn’t enough. Today I had to face that reality again.

The temperatures are warming up enough (or I am sick of being inside) that I decided to go for a run this morning. It was just an ordinary run- I thought I was dying but still going. I was jamming to my iPod and picking up speed as I headed down the last hill. This is where it all changed.

I noticed there was a heifer in the already-calved-pen that was stuck on her back. If a cow gets on her back and her feet uphill she can’t get up alone (sometimes I think I feel like that…). If she is left like that long she could die. Needless to say, when I got up to her, I called The Rancher to come fix it (because he can fix anything!). His response was to do it myself… um… no. I can’t really do a job that takes the two of us. At this point I noticed that she was calving and so we had even more reason to hurry.

After The Rancher’s speedy arrival (that seemed to take hours) we pushed and pulled and grunted and finally got her un-upside down. Then we realized that she couldn’t stand. When cows have been trying to have a baby for a longer time than usual, the pressure can make it so that they can’t get up. This was actually ok because it meant that we could pull the calf right there.

The nose of the baby was sticking out and we could tell that he was struggling to breath. That calf needed help and every minute counted. Which meant we didn’t have time for the calf puller or chains or even gloves. We ended up using a bungee cord to wrap around the calves legs, the wench on our 4 wheeler to do the pulling and yours truly stuck her bare hands into the heifer to help during the tough spots. It wasn’t the most conventional way of pulling a calf, but it worked.

Once we got the calf out, we went to work getting him breathing. A lot of times just tickling the inside of their nose will make them sneeze and that’s enough to jump start them. But that didn’t work…

We tried rubbing his back and chest, trying to wake him up a little more. That didn’t help…

The Rancher got down to him and tried some mouth to nose breathing. With every breath he would give, the calf’s heart would beat a little faster… for a while. But eventually it wasn’t enough and his heart stopped. He died even though we were there to help him. He died while we were doing all we could. He died while my hand was resting on his little chest, willing his heart to beat again.

There comes a point when see that you are going to lose. And its at this point you put everything you have into it, denying the horror that is becoming reality. You hope that your will and determination will cause something miraculous to happen so that you don’t have to face the truth. The truth that calf has died.

This is one of those days that we don’t love on the ranch. We are reminded that we have limits and that there are some things we just can’t fix. And I hate that. I really hate when death wins.