Poor Mama Cows..

It was a sad day today. We lost two Mama Cows...

The first cow, bless her, was the one that kept having the uterine prolapse. You see, before now I didn't understand that a prolapse can happen even before birth, while a cow is pregnant. I thought it was only after birth. But my cowboy explained that it doesn't prolapse all the way, just a little bit. So she had prolapsed a couple of times, and then she tried to deliver her calf last night.

My cowboy, his brother, and his uncle were all there trying to help her, because the calf was stuck. Seems like his head was cocked and he was posterior (facing up instead of down.) They pulled and pulled on the calf for hours. In fact....

My cowboy came home last night and went right to the shower. He told me that he'd had his arm up inside of the cow trying to adjust the calf to get it to come out. Clear up to his shoulder! Oh gross. I said, "I hope you had one of those big gloves on... You did, right?" Uh, nope. He didn't. He said that they didn't have gloves. Barf.

"C'mon honey, it's just blood," he replied.

I told him to shower with bleach. He said he didn't need to. I was already thinking how grateful I was for our new king-sized bed, and how far away he would be from me that night.

Pretty soon, I noticed the smell of bleach. I walked into the kitchen and he said that his arm still stunk even after his shower, so he just used some bleach. He also added, "It's probably 'cause she crapped on me too."

King-sized beds are nice.

Oh, and he mentioned that he cut his finger on the calf's teeth.....

Anyway, back to the poor cow. They weren't able to pull the calf out. The mama cow was still fighting and coming after them anyway. Obviously she didn't think they were helping her. So the guys decided to leave her. Maybe she had enough energy to push that calf out. My cowboy went to check on her a couple hours after his shower and found her and she was still pushing. He set his alarm to go check on her in the morning. I told her that he needed to give her a cesarean. He said he couldn't and that the vet was out of town. Poor, poor mama cow!

Morning came. He went to check on her and she was still struggling...barely. The calf was stuck in the same place, and most likely already dead. So... he had to shoot the mama cow. I would be traumatized. Isn't that just so sad. I mean, sometimes during labor you just want to scream, "Just shoot me!" but you don't really mean it! Poor mama cow!

Then he said he left for just a minute, and when he came back, another pregnant, mama cow had just laid down and died. We have no idea why. She was a little bloated so maybe something was wrong with her or she ate something bad.

So it was a sad day on the farm. At least for me. I don't think it phases anybody else....