Grateful for our Veterinarians!

Today was an unexpected rough day at our farm.  Our morning began with a great blessing: cooler weather!  We enjoyed milking, almost shivering.  We did our chores, fed our cows and calves...and noticed that one of our dry cows was acting sluggish.  Her name is Undies...(it's a long story) we acted quickly, calling the veterinarian as soon as we moved her to the milking barn for easier treatment.  Our suspicions were correct...something was wrong...our girl was definitely feeling under the weather...but it was so much more than what we thought.  Our awesome vet Dr. Nancy was on the scene, and diagnosed a Left Displaced Abomasum (she flipped her stomach to the wrong side of her body-can be painful & deadly, fixed only by surgery).  BUT....after a thorough check up, Dr. Nancy also found that our dear Undies also twisted her uterus.  It is as painful as it sounds.  Dr. Nancy called it the worse case of cramps you can possibly think of.  This completely changed that treatment that we needed to do....we now had an emergency on our hands.  We needed to do the stomach surgery as well as a c-section for the calf, thereby untwisting the uterus.  We had no idea what caused these ailments....but we needed to fix them for Undies. 

We had a couple of risks to evaluate before we started the surgeries.  If we did the c-sections, odds were not in our favor for a live calf.  It was too soon for the calf to live, the lungs would not be developed enough to breathe easily.  We wanted to save Undies...so we opted for the surgeries.  The stomach surgery went well, and then Dr. Rich arrived to help with the c-section.   Somewhat of a miracle happened though, Undies had started labor while we were working on her stomach and was able to deliver her calf normally.  We were excited to try, since this would be better for the cow, but maybe not as good for the calf.  Dr. Rich pulled out a backwards heifer calf, alive, but struggling to breathe, then Dr. Nancy yelled for help....there was a 2nd calf!!!!! Twins!!!!

Dr. Rich pulled the 2nd calf, also a heifer calf, but also struggling to breathe.  We looked like an emergency delivery room: 2 doctors, each working on separate patients, with 2 assistants (Jon and I) working to help.  With help we thought we had the calves breathing well, until the 1st born calf had a seizure of sorts and stopped breathing.  Within 30 minutes the 2nd calf did the same....all that work and time and we couldn't save the calves, no matter how hard we worked.  We had the best vets, providing the best care for our animals, but it wasn't enough.  It's with joy I can report that Undies is doing ok, BUT she's no where near out of the woods...she's got a long road ahead, but we'll be with her every step of the way.

Today, even though the results were not all great, we are grateful for the excellent veterinarians that we get to work with.  Being a large animal vet is a hard job, but we are blessed to have some very qualified vets to help us when our cows are in need.  So today...we pay tribute to some great veterinarians!  They are the BEST!

Baby Boom!

I have always stated that our major calving rush has been in the winter months, but after this past week I think I misspoke!  We have had 1-2 calves everyday for the past 6 days!  The first one visited us on Wednesday evening.  I was gone in the Twin Cities, speaking at an agricultural meeting, when I got a call from Jon on the trip home.  "You better hurry up and get home, Gloria had her calf, and it's snowing here!"  All I could think was, "SNOW! In April!!"  It was sunny and 50 where I was...yuck!  I drove home as swiftly as I could.  It was still snowing!  And there was my little heifer calf, running around in the heavy and wet snow.  She was very healthy, but very wet and cold.  So I scooped her up (named Glorified) and moved her inside the barn, into her dry, heated, and bedded stall.  After that, we moved her mother to the milking barn, so she could be indoors with access to all the feed and water she would want.  That was our first baby...

Thursday our second heifer calf was born.  Her mother was a 1st time mother (fresh heifer), calving almost 10 days before her due date, who had a little trouble calving, but we were there to assist her delivery of a healthy calf.  Friday was the 3rd heifer calf from another surprise calving...#75.  #75 has always had trouble with milk fever, as long as we have owned her (6 years).  With each delivery she has had problems maintaining her blood calcium balance at calving, which causes milk fever.  Symptoms include: muscle weakness, cold ears, poor pupil dilation, and inability to stand.  We needed to give #75 IV fluids that included calcium.  With a little time she was up and running.  Saturday was another big surprise...TWIN heifer calves!  My lovely cow Olivia calved overnight, successfully delivering twin heifers: Ochyeden and Ogilive.  They're so cute!  I am still amazed at how well Olivia cared for twins, it was no easy task for her!  And finally, this morning we came to the farm early, to get ready for church, when I discovered Delano trying to calve.  We worked as swiftly as we could, but we were unable to deliver a live calf.  Delano had been laboring for a few hours overnight and was unable to deliver her calf on her own.  We assisted her when we got to the farm, but pulled a dead bull calf.  I was so frustrated!  Times like this make living in town very complicated.  The 10 minute drive to the farm might have well been 10 hours, because we were too late.  So, we promise to work harder next time, and are thankful for at least a healthy Delano.  So as you can see, we've been busy with our latest Baby Boom!

World Dairy Expo bound!!!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are headed off to World Dairy Expo in Madison Wisconsin. I am so excited !!! Dairy Expo is a great place to meet with old friends, fellow industry leaders, and make new friends. This year I am attending the opening day to be an active member of a seminar about using Social Media to deliver the great messages about the Dairy Industry. I am truly honored to have been asked to share my thoughts. I am hoping to take some cool pictures and video to post in the coming days as well as more corn silage videos.

Also great news from the farm, our bull calf streak (7 bulls in a row) has been broken! Today we successfully delivered a set of twin heifers!!!! So cute, Kasota and Kimble are a lot of fun to feed twice a day and play with =)

Off to bed, so I can road trip tomorrow!!!