Peed on, p’d off
This week was calf-weaning week. I say “week” because it has been known to happen that the calves will cry for several days as a protest after being taken away from their mothers. This year was no exception.
At this point, our calves each weigh between 550 and 700 pounds. It is incredibly hard on the mothers as the pasture grasses begin to wane, to continue to nurse a baby that large without doing some damage to themselves. Left with their mothers, calves will literally suck the life out of them in short order.
So we separate mother and baby, keeping them in sight of one another until the heartache subsides. And we do that by sending all of our herd into the corral behind the barn and then letting only the mothers leave.
It gets a little sketchy as we get further into the sorting process. The mothers who have been let out cluster all around the gate (and the gate operator – me!), and the mothers who have yet to be sorted out are outnumbered by those who will remain in the pen.
This week, as I stood guarding the gate, I had a new experience with our cows. As one mother lifted her tail to pee, another used her tail to swish a fly and in the process, swished urine all down the back of my legs. Gross.
After what seemed like forever, we were finished. The bellowing didn’t start for a while, as the mothers leave their calves alone a good bit at this age. Only when their udders starting filling up and the babies didn’t come did they realize there was a problem. That night we were serenaded to sleep by the not-so-soothing lullaby of bawling cattle.
The following morning, I went out to dust the calves in the barn with a powder designed to keep flies down. I was having good luck getting close to them and was nearly done when our dog came into the pen and decided to try to herd the calves for me.
Barking and nipping at hooves, he managed to separate one from the rest. Spooked, it literally crawled under the gate and took off running – right down onto the road. I was madder than I can ever remember being as I began to follow that calf, which was trotting right down the center of a busy stretch of Route 18.
Fortunately for us (and the dog), she turned onto a side road and went through an open gate back into one of our fields before anyone was hurt.
So what’s the moral of this story? I guess it’s that I’ve been told it’s better to be p’d off than to be peed on, but I’m not so sure I’d agree. Being peed on was gross, but I was able to shower it away. Being p’d off was a struggle to get over and affected my entire day.
Not that I’m looking for a repeat of either any time soon.
Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.