Book Your Health Coaching Call
Good Medicine
  • Home
  • Liz James
    • About Liz
    • Coaching
    • Book a 30 Minute Complimentary Coaching Call
  • Young Living
    • Company
    • Abundance
    • Opportunity
  • Catalog
    • Young Living Catalog
    • Savvy Minerals 2020
    • CBD
  • Blog
Picture

CUTENESS OVERLOAD

5/27/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
​On Wednesday (the 17th) our newest family member arrived, finally! This was Mercy’s first calf, and since she never had any outward signs of being in heat, we weren’t exactly sure when she was bred… and consequently, didn’t exactly have a good idea of when her due date was going to be. That’s all fine and dandy, but if you are like me, once the signs of impending calving start occurring, I’m on full alert. Again, all fine and dandy until the signs drop in one by one instead of all at once. Three weeks after the first “I think she’s calving soon”… we get our baby…. and I’m exhausted just from the wait! (Thank you Jesus for Ningxia Nitro! Holler at me if you’d like to know more about this particular YL product. It’s not an energy drink, but it does give you staying power without the crash afterwards…. and I’ve definitely needed that recently.)

I know, I know…. calves have been born for thousands of years without man’s intervention. True. But calves and cows have also died (and still do) without an attentive eye on the process. Usually, the event is uncomplicated, and we just give a thumbs up to the mama and a quick lovin’ on the baby. However, this time would have been one of those occasions where the calf would have likely died without human intervention. I’ve done this whole birthing thing enough times now that I hold my breath for about a week once the baby is born before I slowly start to exhale. I don’t consider a birthing process successful until I actually breathe :).

This little calf is a heifer (a female). Yay!! !She is a Jersey…. 1/4 mini, and 3/4 regular sized Jersey. Our bull is a registered mini Jersey, but he forgot to quit growing (he is 1/2 mini), so he is a standard full sized bull with mini genes. That said, he is very good about passing along his mini genes. This little girl weighed in at about 23 lbs at birth…. tiny for a calf. She was also born with contracted tendons in her legs, so the poor little thing couldn’t walk without major assistance for the first 36 hours. If a calf can’t walk, they normally can’t nurse….. and not nursing usually doesn’t end well for the calf.

We realized fairly quickly that something was wrong when she just couldn’t stand even 2 hours after her birth (Calves usually stand within the hour that they are born). We immediately went to work trying to hold her up so that she could nurse. Mama (Mercy) was confused and frustrated. The baby was confused and frustrated, and I was frustrated and worried. It was not the best of times. Finally, Mercy knew best, and bless her heart, she lay down not far from her baby…. milk streaming from her teats. I picked up the calf, and put her right next to her mama, close enough to nurse. It didn’t take a minute before they got the problem under control, and the calf got her important first meal in her belly. Then I scooted her a safe distance away from Mercy so that she wouldn’t get stepped on when her mama got up. For the next 36 hours, I picked up the baby and held her in a standing position every 4 hours so that she could nurse adequately. It took just that long for her tendons to relax so she could get her land legs under her.

​Because she is so tiny, we’ve kept she and her mama in a paddock for the last 10 days, just until she got a little more weight on her.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Hey there....thanks for stopping by! This is me (Liz James)... an eclectic mixture of holistic (and organic) farmgirl meets pharmacist. It's a synergy that works well as I speak truths and dissect fact from fiction. If you're looking for healthier living options, you've come to the right place!  ​

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017

    Categories

    All
    Abundance
    Big Pharma
    Children
    Elsa
    EMF/5G
    Essential Oils
    Farm Animals
    Farmgril
    Freedom
    Gardening
    Giving
    God
    Good Reads
    Health
    Health Clues
    Henri The Squirrel
    History
    Holy Spirit
    Immune Support
    Jesus
    Mindset
    News
    Prepper
    Probiotics
    Products & Supplements
    Raw Milk
    Recipes
    Shortage
    Sleep
    Sustainability
    The Farm
    Toxins
    Virus
    Wealth
    Wellness
    Young Living

    RSS Feed

Elizabeth James

469.425.9091
ebj0203@gmail.com
  • Home
  • Liz James
    • About Liz
    • Coaching
    • Book a 30 Minute Complimentary Coaching Call
  • Young Living
    • Company
    • Abundance
    • Opportunity
  • Catalog
    • Young Living Catalog
    • Savvy Minerals 2020
    • CBD
  • Blog