A ROUGH START TO LIFE - The story of Chittering Downs Andre’s birth.
- by Elizabeth Day
On a chilly spring night in October last year, our young red heifer, Josette, went into labour. It was confirmed just two weeks earlier that she was pregnant, something we suspected but were hoping wasn’t true. And the reason we were hoping this was because an imminent birth meant she was serviced accidentally at six months of age, just before we purchased her. Josette, our sweetest and most gentle heifer, was now just 15 months old and was giving birth a year prematurely. She lost her innocence far too early.
I checked her on Monday evening. She appeared to be bagging up, but being so young her tiny udder was nowhere near mature so I couldn’t be sure. We did not stay at the farm that night as I was working the next day. I would check her on Tuesday evening.
Annoyingly, I woke at home early on Tuesday morning and realised I had left some paperwork at the farm, that I needed that day. That meant I needed to return to the farm before starting work at 8am - a total of a 100km round trip. How fortuitous this turned out to be. I arrived at the farm at 7am, dashed into the house to get my paperwork, then on dashing back into the car, made a U turn to have a quick look at Josette. There I saw her lying down in the paddock clearly exhausted. Just visible from her birth canal were the two black front legs and the most swollen tongue I have ever seen dangling from the mouth of what I assumed was a dead calf. (see Fig 1.)
The head had not emerged, just the nostrils and this massive tongue which was soiled with equal amounts of dirt and faeces from Josette.
For a few seconds I had to gather my thoughts. This was clearly an emergency. Josette had ceased straining and the black calf legs were icy cold. We were in danger of losing our sweet heifer, if I didn’t think fast. Firstly I needed to change out of my good clothes, ring work to cancel my morning patients, and message my guru mentor, Mike, with a photo of Josette’s current situation. Although I had delivered Ebere’s calf a few months earlier which was presenting in a breech position, I instinctively knew this was more urgent. No time for errors, or we would be burying two animals.
I tied Josette to the nearest tree - walking her to the crush would take too long. A message reply from Mike agreed the calf must be dead. Now I just had to get the thing out to save Mama. Firstly, I decided to get that offensive tongue back in
the mouth, not really sure why, but it just belonged back in there as opposed to protruding grossly. Then I eased the face out from the vaginal muscles. Miraculously, the little calf blinked weakly. It was alive! Although the umbilical cord would have been broken hours earlier, thereby cutting off oxygen supply from the mother’s blood circulation, the fact that the nostrils were exposed to the air had saved him. He would have been breathing in the crisp night air to keep him alive.
So now I was to pull with all the strength I had. This was the most difficult extraction I had ever done. Mama’s muscles had tightened and constricted. Poor Josette must have been in labour for many hours, and her relaxed, moist birth canal was no longer relaxed or moist.
I made little progress pulling over the next minute, so I texted Mike saying I couldn’t get it out. “Yes you can” was the reply I received. Right!, I thought. If he says I can, then I will. I was glad he had confidence in me. After what must have been a few more minutes, but seemed like ages, I had the
calf out as far as its hips. (Fig 2). I had pulled so hard I had forced Josette off balance and she had fallen onto her side, still tied to the tree. I gathered my strength over a few seconds break, then
pulled again. Now the whole calf came, and a little black bull was born - alive, but not wonderfully well.
At this point my neighbours ran over, having been phoned by Albert (from work) to come and help. After untying Josette, we rubbed the freezing little calf with towels to warm him up. Normally mama would lick the calf at this stage to stimulate circulation and start the bonding process, but Josette was not hanging around. She was so traumatised she was having nothing to do with this “foreign body” that had caused all that pain, and walked away.
So we decided to put Josette and the calf in the yard, and see if Mother Nature would take over with the bonding and first suckling. The sun now helped warm the little bull, but Josette stood in one corner, as if to sulk, not at all interested. Slowly the bull lifted his head and looked around, then instinctively as all calves do, attempted to find his legs to stand. My neighbours and I sat on the wall a few metres away and watched. But sadly, his front legs were
“not working”. He could not stand. We waited almost an hour, willing him to get up, but it was eventually apparent that from his knees down, the front legs
were either paralysed or lacking in muscle tone due to the blood circulation having been restricted for any number of hours when he was stuck and constricted by the birth canal.
Dehydration of the calf was now on my mind, because if he could not stand, he could not suckle from Josette. The next priority was now to milk colostrum from mama and spoon it in to the calf’s mouth (Figs 3 & 4).
He welcomed the warm creamy liquid enthusiastically. Then we rubbed and massaged the fore legs for as long as we could. By now it was lunch time, and my neighbours left. Josette delivered the afterbirth and lay down to rest.
By the evening, the calf, who was now called Andre, christened by our handler Danielle (because he shared his
birthday with her Dad), could still not stand. It was suggested
we try splinting his front legs to force the fetlocks to hold the hooves forward, so he could stand. Otherwise the hooves just flopped limply. I tried pop-sticks! Not surprisingly they did not work.
The next day, on Wednesday afternoon, I bought the biggest plastic box I could see in Bunnings and placed straw bedding in it. I also bought some powdered milk from The Farm Shop. Thursday was a work day for me and I could not cancel more patients. I could see this crippled little calf
would be coming to work with me. He was weak and dehydrated. Milking Josette was time consuming and I had used all the collected colostrum we had in the freezer.
On Thursday morning, before work, Albert and I tested his ability to stand while we supported his weight. We were relieved that his front hooves were now more stable and could hold his weight without buckling.
Cosy in his box in the boot of my new car (Fig 5), off I drove to work with Andre.
Albert and I decided this was a temporary solution, and if he could not stand unsupported by the weekend, we would euthanase him. I fed him well in the morning, he slept well and woke at lunch time. He took another decent feed, and slept again. By the end of the work day, he had turned the corner. He had passed his first bowel motion, urinated, and moo’d! He had gained enough strength to stand and take his own weight. A little more help, and he was walking and doing those joyful little jumps that new calves do. I reconnected Andre with his Mama who had been in the yard recuperating. This reunion was not as joyful. Josette was not at all interested in this calf and immediately head-butted him through the rails and out of the yard. Andre’s start to life was still rather tenuous.
The solution was to place Josette in the crush, and hold her back leg back with a rope so she could not kick off her baby.
(Fig 6)
A combination of this and powdered bottle milk continued for three more days and by Sunday mama and baby were united. Josette accepted her baby, and became the best Mum she could be, given she was still virtually a baby herself. We supplemented Mum’s milk for four months, and today Andre is a healthy seven month old steer, with the only reminder of his traumatic start beings the two white patches of hair on
his fore legs where they had been “tourniqueted” for several hours causing loss of blood supply.
Andre and Josette are very special to us, and give us much satisfaction and enjoyment. He is one very spoilt young steer who will remain a pet and part of the family.
- by Elizabeth Day
On a chilly spring night in October last year, our young red heifer, Josette, went into labour. It was confirmed just two weeks earlier that she was pregnant, something we suspected but were hoping wasn’t true. And the reason we were hoping this was because an imminent birth meant she was serviced accidentally at six months of age, just before we purchased her. Josette, our sweetest and most gentle heifer, was now just 15 months old and was giving birth a year prematurely. She lost her innocence far too early.
I checked her on Monday evening. She appeared to be bagging up, but being so young her tiny udder was nowhere near mature so I couldn’t be sure. We did not stay at the farm that night as I was working the next day. I would check her on Tuesday evening.
Annoyingly, I woke at home early on Tuesday morning and realised I had left some paperwork at the farm, that I needed that day. That meant I needed to return to the farm before starting work at 8am - a total of a 100km round trip. How fortuitous this turned out to be. I arrived at the farm at 7am, dashed into the house to get my paperwork, then on dashing back into the car, made a U turn to have a quick look at Josette. There I saw her lying down in the paddock clearly exhausted. Just visible from her birth canal were the two black front legs and the most swollen tongue I have ever seen dangling from the mouth of what I assumed was a dead calf. (see Fig 1.)
The head had not emerged, just the nostrils and this massive tongue which was soiled with equal amounts of dirt and faeces from Josette.
For a few seconds I had to gather my thoughts. This was clearly an emergency. Josette had ceased straining and the black calf legs were icy cold. We were in danger of losing our sweet heifer, if I didn’t think fast. Firstly I needed to change out of my good clothes, ring work to cancel my morning patients, and message my guru mentor, Mike, with a photo of Josette’s current situation. Although I had delivered Ebere’s calf a few months earlier which was presenting in a breech position, I instinctively knew this was more urgent. No time for errors, or we would be burying two animals.
I tied Josette to the nearest tree - walking her to the crush would take too long. A message reply from Mike agreed the calf must be dead. Now I just had to get the thing out to save Mama. Firstly, I decided to get that offensive tongue back in
the mouth, not really sure why, but it just belonged back in there as opposed to protruding grossly. Then I eased the face out from the vaginal muscles. Miraculously, the little calf blinked weakly. It was alive! Although the umbilical cord would have been broken hours earlier, thereby cutting off oxygen supply from the mother’s blood circulation, the fact that the nostrils were exposed to the air had saved him. He would have been breathing in the crisp night air to keep him alive.
So now I was to pull with all the strength I had. This was the most difficult extraction I had ever done. Mama’s muscles had tightened and constricted. Poor Josette must have been in labour for many hours, and her relaxed, moist birth canal was no longer relaxed or moist.
I made little progress pulling over the next minute, so I texted Mike saying I couldn’t get it out. “Yes you can” was the reply I received. Right!, I thought. If he says I can, then I will. I was glad he had confidence in me. After what must have been a few more minutes, but seemed like ages, I had the
calf out as far as its hips. (Fig 2). I had pulled so hard I had forced Josette off balance and she had fallen onto her side, still tied to the tree. I gathered my strength over a few seconds break, then
pulled again. Now the whole calf came, and a little black bull was born - alive, but not wonderfully well.
At this point my neighbours ran over, having been phoned by Albert (from work) to come and help. After untying Josette, we rubbed the freezing little calf with towels to warm him up. Normally mama would lick the calf at this stage to stimulate circulation and start the bonding process, but Josette was not hanging around. She was so traumatised she was having nothing to do with this “foreign body” that had caused all that pain, and walked away.
So we decided to put Josette and the calf in the yard, and see if Mother Nature would take over with the bonding and first suckling. The sun now helped warm the little bull, but Josette stood in one corner, as if to sulk, not at all interested. Slowly the bull lifted his head and looked around, then instinctively as all calves do, attempted to find his legs to stand. My neighbours and I sat on the wall a few metres away and watched. But sadly, his front legs were
“not working”. He could not stand. We waited almost an hour, willing him to get up, but it was eventually apparent that from his knees down, the front legs
were either paralysed or lacking in muscle tone due to the blood circulation having been restricted for any number of hours when he was stuck and constricted by the birth canal.
Dehydration of the calf was now on my mind, because if he could not stand, he could not suckle from Josette. The next priority was now to milk colostrum from mama and spoon it in to the calf’s mouth (Figs 3 & 4).
He welcomed the warm creamy liquid enthusiastically. Then we rubbed and massaged the fore legs for as long as we could. By now it was lunch time, and my neighbours left. Josette delivered the afterbirth and lay down to rest.
By the evening, the calf, who was now called Andre, christened by our handler Danielle (because he shared his
birthday with her Dad), could still not stand. It was suggested
we try splinting his front legs to force the fetlocks to hold the hooves forward, so he could stand. Otherwise the hooves just flopped limply. I tried pop-sticks! Not surprisingly they did not work.
The next day, on Wednesday afternoon, I bought the biggest plastic box I could see in Bunnings and placed straw bedding in it. I also bought some powdered milk from The Farm Shop. Thursday was a work day for me and I could not cancel more patients. I could see this crippled little calf
would be coming to work with me. He was weak and dehydrated. Milking Josette was time consuming and I had used all the collected colostrum we had in the freezer.
On Thursday morning, before work, Albert and I tested his ability to stand while we supported his weight. We were relieved that his front hooves were now more stable and could hold his weight without buckling.
Cosy in his box in the boot of my new car (Fig 5), off I drove to work with Andre.
Albert and I decided this was a temporary solution, and if he could not stand unsupported by the weekend, we would euthanase him. I fed him well in the morning, he slept well and woke at lunch time. He took another decent feed, and slept again. By the end of the work day, he had turned the corner. He had passed his first bowel motion, urinated, and moo’d! He had gained enough strength to stand and take his own weight. A little more help, and he was walking and doing those joyful little jumps that new calves do. I reconnected Andre with his Mama who had been in the yard recuperating. This reunion was not as joyful. Josette was not at all interested in this calf and immediately head-butted him through the rails and out of the yard. Andre’s start to life was still rather tenuous.
The solution was to place Josette in the crush, and hold her back leg back with a rope so she could not kick off her baby.
(Fig 6)
A combination of this and powdered bottle milk continued for three more days and by Sunday mama and baby were united. Josette accepted her baby, and became the best Mum she could be, given she was still virtually a baby herself. We supplemented Mum’s milk for four months, and today Andre is a healthy seven month old steer, with the only reminder of his traumatic start beings the two white patches of hair on
his fore legs where they had been “tourniqueted” for several hours causing loss of blood supply.
Andre and Josette are very special to us, and give us much satisfaction and enjoyment. He is one very spoilt young steer who will remain a pet and part of the family.