Robin, Criation, and Wrestling calves

Yesterday we had a three year old Holstein dairy cow named Robin come in because she was ADR (ain't doing right). The previous week she'd had twin calves--one of which was born dead--and there had been a lot of trauma during calving. I think I'd be a little ADR myself. We flushed out her uterus and put her on some antibiotics, pain meds, and some dextrose as a pick-me-up. This morning she was looking much better and was interested in eating again. Things are looking up for this girl and hopefully next time she gets bred she's not unlucky enough to have twins again.

This morning when we came in we got to see an alpaca give birth. I felt like I was watching something out of Jurassic Park. Here's a picture of a newborn cria: http://www.swalpacas.com/images/Diana2.jpg . At the very least I imagine that is what baby giraffes look like at birth. The baby cria had a neck that was almost as long as his skinny legs and he made sounds that reminded me of a Velociraptor. The rest of the morning we did breeding soundness exams on four rams and we finally sent Green and Lime home.

This afternoon we had a calf come in for an umbilical hernia. She was short, squat, and all muscle, weighing in at 470 pounds. She was feisty and stinkin' cute with a bald face, four socks, and a white tipped tail. As the students on the case were wrapping things up with the owner, the tech asked me if felt comfortable taking the calf back to a stall. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the guys on my rotation head our direction and I quickly said yes and took the lead rope from the tech. I admit it, I have my pride. And I certainly wasn't going to let a boy do what I knew I was capable of. So Shade and I made our way down the hallway with Caleb following us to open the stall door, though I think he really followed us to make sure the calf didn't run away with me... She tried to take off a few times, but years of working with horses has taught me how to use what little weight I have to my advantage and every time that sucker took off she just found herself going in a circle. We made it down to her stall with minimal excitement and as I shut the gate behind her I wanted to dust off my hands and say "so there". Brute strength doesn't always win. Sometimes it helps to have leverage on your side. That and determination not to be one-upped by a boy :)