So I feel a bit flattened, along with Maybe, who just seems to keep falling over, despite our best efforts to put a spring in her step.

She’s currently abed amongst the lush green pastures in the chook run. I thought she seemed poorly again this morning, her movements slow, a definite disinterest in food (most unlike her), her head down, a general look of unhappiness about her.

Her unhappiness makes me feel similarly down.

I expect she has milk fever, which my Dad surmised initially. It’s a calcium deficiency (hypocalcemia) which cows post-calving are prone to, since nursing calves takes alot out of the cow. Worst case scenario is that she dies.

When she was very sick a week or so ago, we injected her just beneath the skin with a calcium/glucose/magnesium solution (see previous post). This seemed to assist. We kept her calves off her for some days, and stopped milking her. While she hasn’t been doing the highland fling, she has certainly been on her feet and on her food and looking much better.

So we let her calves in for brief periods once in the morning and once at night to drink their fill, since they have no clue how to drink milk from a bottle or a bucket, and we limited their feeding so as not to deplete her.

One night, we left her in the chook run, cos the grass is so lush, and she really needs to have good pasture to turn into milk. In the morning we woke up and there, in the chook pen with her, was her biological calf, Andy! How did he get in??? Well, he, long legged calf that he is, found a spot where the fence is in bad repair between the pigpen and the chook pen and stepped over in his high heels…

This was a bit of a blow, since he would have been nursing on her all night, undoing our plans to keep her healthy by keeping the calves off her except for short periods of time.

Today we went out for a while and when we arrived home Maybe was down (there’s resting and then there’s resting…). She eventually got to her feet, but still not bright eyed and bushy tailed. Off to the chook pen, Andy finds the break in the fence again. Finally, so do I, and repair it. But not before Andy has suckled off her and I guess finished off the least bit of strength she has.

She’s down. I’m feeding her comfrey leaves and mulberry leaves and I’ve put apple cider vinegar in her water and given her some of her feed with minerals, but it looks like an unhappy situation, and may require another visit to the vet for more awful injections. (Charlene valiantly administered the last lot, with my assistance, but she’s not at all keen to do it again.)

The outcome doesn’t look bright. Probably the only way to keep her well is to wean the calves. This is kind of disastrous for us. We bought Maybe with her calves in order that she nurse them (Andy is her biological calf, and Frenchie is her foster calf), and we grow them on her milk, which is the most healthy way to grow them. We also bought her as a house cow, to provide us with our dairy needs. None of this works with a dry cow.

I just feel devastated. I really want to look out the door and find Maybe standing and eating, knee high in psychedelic green grass.

I am telling myself she’s resting, but I know she’s not. I know she can’t get up.

So I’m gonna get up now, and look out the door. Maybe she’ll be kicking up her heels.

xxV

postscript:
Well, Maybe is standing, walking, eating, for now. Andy THREW himself over my repaired and now-much-higher fence to get to her. Desperado. He’s the boundary rider, he’ll find any break there is. Mum’s milk is the whole world…