- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Hmm…the value of shares can go down as well as up, various adverts for financial scams reluctantly reminded us. Well the fortunes –and values- of South Devon cows can go down as well as up.
My ‘Caesar’ cow has yo-yoed from a promising in-calf 7 year old, worth several hundred quid, to an open sided surgery patient, onto a freshly stitched up out patient, with strapping calf at foot – dipping to a hesitant zero, then quickly looking like she’d be growing onto a grands worth of outfit worthy of the vets bill.
But as I was crowing how clever we all were, she was developing an abscess in the outer muscle wall, and what seemed a pretty innocuous oedema soon started to dribble some very noxious gloop, pulling on the skin sutures for good measure.
Currently, we’re so far into this particular hand of agri-poker, with the vets bill and anti-biotics already likely to exceed her value if she survives, that I’m on the wrong side of it however it goes now. If I tallied our own time….well, probably better if I don’t. Of course I don’t get up mornings and think of my stock in that way, but equally, if I never weighed it up, I’d be making even dafter decisions. The only cock-eyed silver lining to this sorry story was about 5 days in, when I found a very useful cow stood over a still born calf. It was a pretty full on morning, and it was after lunch before I sent the sorcerer’s apprentice up with a sharp knife, to fetch this cow down to the yard, bringing the skin of her stillborn with him. And sure enough, she took the Caesar cows calf in the instance that she smelled her licked clean baby’s jacket on its back. That was a result, at least.
View attachment 674934
Elsewhere…. The lad saw a Belted Galloway heifer snuffling off on her own last thing one night, and duly reported it to the morning shift –yours truly. So that was one of the first places I was looking the following day. And he was right, she was off alone, under a gorse bush with 2 little trotters sticking out of her back end. Careful, if hurried, analysis suggested these trotters were the right way up, and didn’t look dry/swollen, and the little bit of attached gloop looked pretty fresh. Conclusion, she hadn’t been at this very long. So I went on my round, and got back to the yard to load an outbound lorry before I set off once more…this time with a calving aid on my shoulder. Her gorse bush was just above a track, 10 minutes walk out…easy peasy. I left gates open as I went, in case I had to drive her back. I’d prefer to calve her out on the peat though, and indeed I might’ve. But when I got back she’d gone. Properly gone. Searching 50 acres, and several hundred gorse bushes, it was almost an hour before I tracked her down. She’d upped and moved, evading a potential predator who’d found her at a vulnerable moment I suppose, and moved right down beside the Dart.
Okey dokey I said to her. ‘Is there a nose to go with these little trotters? And are you going to allow my interference out in the wilds, or are we all heading back to the pens?’ Happily, I got a yes to both questions, and after nipping back to where I’d left the calving jack –it’d started getting heavy, I slipped a handy bit of ‘quadrant’ cord over each foot, and started to apply some pressure. This is skipping over a brief foray messily through some more gorse bushes, but once I started to tug, her attention focussed on the job in hand, and we soon had her calf moving. It was still very perky as its nose started appearing, biting me as I thoughtfully pulled bits of gorse prickle from its mouth. Mind, actually exiting squeezed it enough that its tongue was soon engorged and stuck out, but within a minute of hitting the deck, his tongue was back in, he was breathing, and soon sitting up. Mum sat up, leaning round to sniff what I was dragging round to the sharp end.
As the fish jumped at the morning midges, and twittering birdies chased others up and down the river bank, I decided it couldn’t be all bad, and there must be worse ways to spend a morning. I’m not crowing yet though, 2 years ago a very similar outfit was left fine and dandy in the same spot, until a flood a couple of nights later took calf down the river.
Like I said, values can go down as well as up.
——————————————————
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine and the NFU
He has published two books; the second "The Complete Bullocks" is still in print
http://www.anton-coaker.co.uk/book.htm
My ‘Caesar’ cow has yo-yoed from a promising in-calf 7 year old, worth several hundred quid, to an open sided surgery patient, onto a freshly stitched up out patient, with strapping calf at foot – dipping to a hesitant zero, then quickly looking like she’d be growing onto a grands worth of outfit worthy of the vets bill.
But as I was crowing how clever we all were, she was developing an abscess in the outer muscle wall, and what seemed a pretty innocuous oedema soon started to dribble some very noxious gloop, pulling on the skin sutures for good measure.
Currently, we’re so far into this particular hand of agri-poker, with the vets bill and anti-biotics already likely to exceed her value if she survives, that I’m on the wrong side of it however it goes now. If I tallied our own time….well, probably better if I don’t. Of course I don’t get up mornings and think of my stock in that way, but equally, if I never weighed it up, I’d be making even dafter decisions. The only cock-eyed silver lining to this sorry story was about 5 days in, when I found a very useful cow stood over a still born calf. It was a pretty full on morning, and it was after lunch before I sent the sorcerer’s apprentice up with a sharp knife, to fetch this cow down to the yard, bringing the skin of her stillborn with him. And sure enough, she took the Caesar cows calf in the instance that she smelled her licked clean baby’s jacket on its back. That was a result, at least.
View attachment 674934
Elsewhere…. The lad saw a Belted Galloway heifer snuffling off on her own last thing one night, and duly reported it to the morning shift –yours truly. So that was one of the first places I was looking the following day. And he was right, she was off alone, under a gorse bush with 2 little trotters sticking out of her back end. Careful, if hurried, analysis suggested these trotters were the right way up, and didn’t look dry/swollen, and the little bit of attached gloop looked pretty fresh. Conclusion, she hadn’t been at this very long. So I went on my round, and got back to the yard to load an outbound lorry before I set off once more…this time with a calving aid on my shoulder. Her gorse bush was just above a track, 10 minutes walk out…easy peasy. I left gates open as I went, in case I had to drive her back. I’d prefer to calve her out on the peat though, and indeed I might’ve. But when I got back she’d gone. Properly gone. Searching 50 acres, and several hundred gorse bushes, it was almost an hour before I tracked her down. She’d upped and moved, evading a potential predator who’d found her at a vulnerable moment I suppose, and moved right down beside the Dart.
Okey dokey I said to her. ‘Is there a nose to go with these little trotters? And are you going to allow my interference out in the wilds, or are we all heading back to the pens?’ Happily, I got a yes to both questions, and after nipping back to where I’d left the calving jack –it’d started getting heavy, I slipped a handy bit of ‘quadrant’ cord over each foot, and started to apply some pressure. This is skipping over a brief foray messily through some more gorse bushes, but once I started to tug, her attention focussed on the job in hand, and we soon had her calf moving. It was still very perky as its nose started appearing, biting me as I thoughtfully pulled bits of gorse prickle from its mouth. Mind, actually exiting squeezed it enough that its tongue was soon engorged and stuck out, but within a minute of hitting the deck, his tongue was back in, he was breathing, and soon sitting up. Mum sat up, leaning round to sniff what I was dragging round to the sharp end.
As the fish jumped at the morning midges, and twittering birdies chased others up and down the river bank, I decided it couldn’t be all bad, and there must be worse ways to spend a morning. I’m not crowing yet though, 2 years ago a very similar outfit was left fine and dandy in the same spot, until a flood a couple of nights later took calf down the river.
Like I said, values can go down as well as up.
——————————————————
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine and the NFU
He has published two books; the second "The Complete Bullocks" is still in print
http://www.anton-coaker.co.uk/book.htm
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