It’s been a busy month on the farm, but I’d been struggling to come up with a good idea for my blog for the month.  Keira has helped me out with that.  Thursday we learned about hydramnios.

From the outside, this bull calf doesn't look like there's anything wrong with him.

I went out to start my morning chores Thursday and after a visit to the hens, I heard Keira greeting me from behind the barn. I went through the parlor to check on her & was horrified by the sight that met my eyes when I opened the outside door.  There stood a gaunt, forlorn Keira, looking like she had wallowed in the mud all night, cord hanging out and…….”Keira, where’s the baby?!?”  I soon found him – a perfectly normal looking red bull calf, lying dead in the mud on the other side of the fence.  Keira still had not milked up at all.  A few hours later, she finally passed the placenta, along with a river of fluid.

I had put in a call to the vet right away - he had just been out Tuesday evening to AI BoPeep for me, and when he saw Keira he commented on how enormous she was.  We knew by her breeding date that she was very near to calving, but I pointed out to him that she wasn’t milking up yet.  He returned my call shortly after she passed the placenta, and his first question was “Does she look like somebody gutted her?”  A definite yes there.  Then “Does it look like she had tons of fluid where the calf was born?”  Another yes.  He had immediately made the connection between her enormous belly & a dead calf – hydramnios.
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I LOVE SPRING!

The old apple tree in full bloom.

The grass turns green, flowers bloom.  It’s a time of new life…..and new babies on the farm.  It’s so refreshing and exciting after a long, cold winter.  So on Friday, as I made my rounds visiting the animals, I drank in the beauty of it all and enjoyed the new life around me.

Lacey & her newly hatched brood.

We had eggs in the incubator when one of the hens decided to go broody.  So I gave her the eggs for the last week and she did a lovely job of hatching them out….all 14 of them.  Of course none of them are genetically hers because she wasn’t among the hens I put in with that rooster, but as far as she’s concerned they’re all very much hers and she’s being a great momma.  Once they were all hatched & dry, she took them over to the feeder & showed them what to eat.  When she was satisfied with that proceeding, she headed to the waterer to teach the drinking lesson.  The mothering instinct  just amazes me!  And the miracle of birth fills me with wonder no matter the species.  Seeing these straggly chicks hatching out of their eggs is just as wonderful as seeing a foal or calf being born.  And now they’re energetic little fluff-balls, running around exploring their new world….what fun!
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Yesterday was a hard day.  The hay storage room of the cow barn is now empty – not so much a comment on the amount of hay in it as the fact that Kitty isn’t there anymore.  My dear, precious mini jersey is gone.  Last Thursday morning Jeff found her fallen, stuck in the mud, belly bloated & legs sticking up in the air, but still alive.  It was a horrible sight.  We got her upright, blanketed, and had the vet come out to IV some goodies into her.  She was hypothermic, hypoglycemic and too weak to get up on her feet.  We had to get her into the barn.

Jeff rigged up a “sled” out of a piece of metal to pull behind the tractor.  We rolled her onto it and dragged her to the barn, where we rolled her into the hay storage area through the garage door.  She spent the next 4 days there, laying on a bed of hay, with us trying to get her to try to stand up.  Instead, she just got weaker and eventually gave up.  I finally had the vet come back yesterday to put her down.  I spent some time sitting with her before he got here, petting her & loving on her, and telling her what a good girl she was & that I was sorry this was the only thing I could do for her anymore.  And now the hay room is empty.
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