Dead or Dying: Heartbreak

Sixty four of the cows have calved. There are about thirty left to go. I lost three calves, and by lost I mean they died. One calf died at a week old, curled up like he was sleeping peacefully. Don't know what happened to him. Another calf came presented wrong with a foot back, and they can't pass through the birth canal that way. By the time I saw it, it was already dead, and I had to pull it. The third calf was stillborn. I don't know what caused that death. It might have have come backward, but sometimes they just don't make it. 

The cows who lose their calves at birth stay with their dead calves. They lick them, and moo quietly to them, and sleep next to them. They want them to get up. They want that calf to be alive and fill that void they must feel. It is probably just hormones and instinct, but to me, saddled with our human tendenency towards anthropomorphism, it looks an awful lot like heartbreak. After a day or two I put the calf in the pickup, and drive it to a grassy hillside far away. There the coyotes and hawks can eat it if they choose to.

I put the two calfless mommas in the pasture with the other cows who have calved. For the next week or so, those two cows checked every new cow/calf pair I brought through the corral. Each time they ran up and sniffed the new calf, hoping it was theirs. Like I said earlier, heartbreak.

Comments

[John Cross]

seriously made me very sad just now

[Fort fey]

Ah, who do ya reckon taught us how to bawl 'cept the critters? They Know ever kind of hurt there be.