There’s been no mention of our Maybe for a week or so I guess, probably about the amount of time we’ve been holding our breath wondering of she’ll be ok… I guess we’ve become used to her tenuous grip on wellness, and don’t freak out now if she goes down for a while, even for some hours and can’t seem to rise. She always manages to get up at some point without assistance and always immediately begins to graze like she’s never seen grass before, then gets a bit bossy when we bring out her feed bin, sometimes managing to prise the lid off a chook feed bin and get her nose all covered in grain…

She’s still producing milk, not a huge amount, but enough for her baby Andy to have a 10 minute suckle morning and night. Andy’s learning to suck fast before we call "last drinks buddy!".  

We think we’ll return to a system of letting just one calf run with her in the day, locking her up away from her calf at night, milking her for ourselves in the morning and either giving that milk to her other calf (who’s struggling without Mum’s milk) or keep a little for ourselves…

Anyway, this is more of a recovery than we could have hoped for. Still have no clue what is wrong with her or why she’s like this, but we continue to love her to death and feed her all kinds of bits and pieces we’ve read about. Todays’ meal: chopped up mulberry and comfrey leaves (mulberry for parasites, comfrey for calcium), carrots (parasites and just cos they taste good), dairy meal, mill run, mineral mix, dolomite, sulphur, cod liver oil, molasses, crushed garlic in apple cider vinegar, all mixed together with a jug of warm raspberry leaf tea (for lactating Mums, to stimulate milk production). Yum!

To the naming business. We’ve tried many names out in the field, and momentarily alighted on Lucky, before slipping back into our habitual yelling of "MAYBE! oh I mean, um… whatever your name is… oh fuckit, MAAAAYYYYBBBEEEEE!" So despite it’s uncertain ambience it seems to have stuck… we’re too accustomed to her name… nothing else seems to work.

So Maybe it is… we just have to embrace her Difference I guess… Maybe the uncertain cow…

 More posts to come.

Love to you all, farmvoyeurs. Vxx