Right after Annette and I got married, we lived in "the cabin" in Turnerville and I ran the ranch for Dad. We did this from May 4, 1990, to the end of June 1990. Dad came home from shearing sheep in mid-June that year.
In the first week or two after we were married, after I got home from driving the morning school bus route, we went to check the cows. We found one cow just across Spring Creek between the south dam and the dead pile. Dad had plowed the field between the race track and Spring Creek the previous fall. The snow was mostly melted and the field was muddy and filled with water puddles left from the melting snow.
The cow had calved right next to a big puddle. She was a first-calf heifer and had calving paralysis (i.e., the cow experienced nerve damage while calving, and her rear legs were paralyzed). The cow had attempted to stand up multiple times to lick off her calf. In the process, she had mostly turned in circles because she could not get her hind legs up. As a result, she bumped and tromped her calf into a puddle.
When Annette and I got to the cow and calf, the calf was not breathing. I pulled the calf out of the puddle and cleaned the mud off its face. I wiped the calf's mouth and nose with my shirt sleeve to clean it up. Then, I held the calf's mouth closed while pinching one nostril closed and gave the calf mouth-to-nose resuscitation. SIDENOTE: Annette vowed to never kiss me again after she watched this!
It worked. I got the calf breathing! It let out a weak calf bawl. Annette and I were riding horses. I got the calf on the horse with me and we took it to the house. We took it into the house and put it in the bathtub. We ran warm water over its body and got it warmed up. Soon, it started to perk up a bit. We gave it some electrolytes and took it to the garage.
I put down some fresh straw and rigged up the heat lamp. We put the calf under the lamp on the straw. It lay down and went to sleep.
We returned to the field to see if I could get the cow up. I held her tail and lifted her up. I walked behind her for some time, but she could not stand on her own.
By this time, I needed to go make the afternoon bus run. We returned to the house and checked on the calf (it was doing fine), and Annette went with me to drive the bus home.
When we got home from driving the bus, we went to the garage to check on the calf. It had died.
After I got the team hooked up to the hayrack so that we could go feed the cows, I put the calf on the rack. We took it to the dead pile. When we got there, I picked up the calf's body and threw it off the hayrack into the dead pile.
Unfortunately, the calf's mother never recovered. For the next week or so, I would go to the cow twice a day and help her up while walking behind her. She never regained use of her hind legs. Thus, we had to put her down. Then, we took her body to the dead pile as well.
This was Annette's introduction to ranching life.
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