When it rains it pours Calves

When it it freezing and the rain sets in while in calving season it isn't pleasant at all. In the South we usually don't get snow and hardly ice but when we do it is bad. While coming home from taking the kids to school and the gym it started looking like this. When I got home the Farmer needed me to help move the cow heard up to some dryer pasture due to it raining non stop almost 10 inches.

He had stopped by a Farm Supply store and got us rain slicker suits so we headed to the Farm office and put them on. Thank goodness for the fireplace in here it made it cozy. He also got me a pair of Muck Boots that came in handy in all this freezing wet nasty junk.
As you can See he got a pretty rain suit while.....

Mine not so much...It looks like the cheap camo look which I HATE he said that is why he got me this color because he knew I hated it so badly. Isn't that love? He just loves me to pieces! Under all this garb I had on a pair of thick lounge pants and sweatshirt and Drake Bibs with the Drake Jacket to go on top of all that plus this ugly rain suit and gloves. Everything but my feet were freezing those Muck boots should make clothing because they were so warm.


We are off trying to get this baby calf and mom to this dryer pasture and while she is right by its side now she will not have anything to do with it once we moved it. If we didn't move it then it would of died from the freezing cold so its a damn if you do damn if you don't situation.

Maci came to help get them to the barn so we could offer some milk to the calf being it hasn't sucked and wont even try. I don't even know if the mom would even let it.

We took her in to get we dried off and bring her temp back up.

 She was so cold and weak from shivering. The kids were a big help in this process.

 I love having a huge Laundry room and this is a reason why.

After the towel we used the blow dryer and got her completely dry

From the we knew it was time to feed her.

We knew she was to weak to even try to suck a bottle so we tube fed her

 and made sure she got colostrum.

As you can see that colostrum made a big difference and she is up and bellaring loud.

 With her doing so good we took her and put her into a stall in our barn for the night.

The next day while doing ranch work we made another discovery that we had another calf born and it was pouring ice down and we knew this lil man need to be brought in and warm back up. He wasn't doing so hot and we worked with him the rest of the day. We found him at 12:30 and at 8:00pm he was barely moving and wouldn't pick up his head or make a loud sound and was so weak his eyes would begin to roll back. The Farmer and I kept looking at each other and thinking how much longer because we knew he probably wouldn't make it but we don't give up. We kept at it and tube fed him also we knew he needed every little but he could get. Around 8:15 he made a tiny progress and so we put him in the bathroom and I wen to work on Google and I came across Severe Hypothermia. How did I miss this? Yes he has this and that is why he is like this. I knew then that he was going to be okay as soon as his brain cells got warm. It takes a long time and sometimes even days. We put a small electric heater in the bathroom with him shut the door and around 3am we checked on him and he was so alert and our hearts melted. The downside was now he has the no fun runs. I cant clean up puke or I puke and I went to gagging and that's when I knew I couldn't do it so the Farmer was on his on. I did hand him paper towels and Clorox wipes. We got back up at 6 and same thing so we threw the calf in the shower washed him off and got him back dry and nice and warm and took him to a stall in the barn back with his mom. His mom is having alot to do with him now but calf is still a little weak. We are tube feeding him and going to try to bottle feed him this afternoon.

This is him so weak and almost lifeless it saddens my heart.

This is at 3am as you can see he is picking up his head and more alert. Thanks goodness

We still have a long way to go and the fight isn't over by no means but thankful things looks better than they did.