Overall, a Good Report

I meant to update last night, but I fell asleep early, worn out from feeding 26 cups of electrolytes to our very sick baby. While in Charlottesville, I bought a calf bottle, but she refused (was unable?) to drink from it, which meant I fed all 26 cups with a bulb syringe, which holds an ounce.

That's right: 206 squeezes on the bulb syringe to keep that baby hydrated.

I had also bought an esophageal feeding tube, in hopes I could just dump the electrolytes into the baby's stomach. It's a bit intimidating, because if you accidentally get the lungs, the animal drowns. I did manage, the third time, to get the feeding tube all the way in, but Belle wasn't very happy, and she thrashed so much, and the electrolytes drained so slowly, it wasn't worth it.

Back to the ounce by ounce method.

It felt like it was pretty dire. Her poop had changed from pudding to water, and our house quickly became incredibly foul smelling.

I tried to remember that the sources all say that the reason calves with scours die is because they get dehydrated, so I figured I could help with the dehydration.

Nonetheless, she didn't stand all day, just lay, resting, with cold ears (a bad sign).

She wasn't urinating at all, either. When she finally did, at about 7pm last night, I was extremely relieved. Around 9pm, i just prayed over her. She continued to scour, but her ears warmed up by the time I fell asleep.

At about 2am, I heard a strange thunking from the living room. I stumbled over many toys to find her, standing up, persistently trying to push the coffee table aside.

This could be disastrous. Our room, often strewn with small pieces of toys, was now covered with toys and books. We had removed school books from the coffee table shelf so we could tip it on end; I had cleaned out the motor home and not found a home for some toys. The carpet, too, was still there, folded up.

If she got out and scoured, what a disaster that would be!

Thankfully she went back to sleep.

Before church, though, we picked up everything off the floor, rolled up the carpet, and opened up the whole room to her, and left her. I had fed her a pint of milk mixed with three pints of water, and she peed out most of it and scoured the rest. We came home to quite a mess! But I had expected it, and with the help of some sawdust, soon swept the room.

She was antsy to get outside, so I brought her out to her calving pen, and prevented her mother from also entering. Too much richness! So there she is, after walking the fence and calling to her mama, her mama stands guard and she rests.

Since yesterday morning, I've milked Bethany three times, to make sure her udder stays in order.

I had been a bit concerned about flecks of blood in Bethany's colostrum. I brought out my California Mastistis Test (CMT) in order to check her milk, and saw that the box said, "Not for use for three days after birthing." Sure enough, this morning, the fourth day, her milk was clear, and her CMT showed her clean of mastitis. Presumably, she never had it, but her udder was just undergoing some trauma as it starts up production again.

Speaking of production, I am a bit concerned. The man who sold these two cows said, "I need all my cows to produce at least 40 pounds of milk a day for me to be profitable, and these ones don't."

Forty pounds of milk translates to a bit more than 5.5 gallons (8.6 pounds of milk makes a gallon). That's not much production for a Holstein (they're more like 10 gallons a day), but a reasonable amount for homestead Jersey.

I didn't expect the Milking Devons to do quite as well as that, though. They're getting no grain to boost production, and we really want to take a long view of them: good nutrition for the course of their life means many years of quality production.

Except I'm not seeing much production. I got about 3.5 pounds of milk this morning. If I get the same amount tonight, that's not even a gallon a day.

There's no way to be profitable feeding $160 worth of hay to the animals every week, and get 7 gallons of usable product (that's assuming we keep all her milk, and put both babies on Bianca. At this point, Bianca is giving us nothing, just raising her calf).

Assuming she does give more, though, we need to figure out VERY QUICKLY how to market this product.

Raw milk is illegal to sell in Virginia (though it's very tasty and, many would argue, myself included, it's more healthy and "living." I've heard studies that up to 70% of people who are "allergic" to milk are not allergic to raw milk; something in the pasteurization makes them ill. Also, I've heard that if a ruminant is fed no grains, that also is not usually an allergenic milk). Farms here set up "cow shares," where a person buys a share of a cow, which entitles them to a certain amount of milk from the cow. They pay the farmer a preset "care and keeping fee," usually the equivalent of about $8/gallon.

Some folks sell raw milk as "fish food," since that's a fairly unregulated market. Some sell it as pet food.

I've been reading in multiple magazines, though, about how amazing raw milk is for the soil. It makes the rain absorb more readily, the grass green up more pleasantly. Overall, it's a perfect garden booster.

Maybe I should market our milk as a "garden supplement," and charge $8 a gallon. Who knows? Maybe someone has a yard large enough to need a gallon a week.

There's been other excitement in the last day (the bulb syringe did not occupy all of my time). Isaiah and Jadon helped me round up about 12 escaped sheep and goats. They were happily grazing in our recovering field, but Isaiah is a professional, and, with a teeny bit of help, he rounded them all back into the pen.

Two cows, a sheep, and a goat got out yesterday morning while Phil and I pushed a round bale into the pen. Phil kept his head, grabbed some poly wire, and strung a line so the animals wouldn't escape. He decreased the size of the enclosure until there was no where for them to go but back in.

We've learned a lot in the last year. But two escapes in a day: how unusual!

The bucks were in rut. They repeatedly mounted one of the sheep, which made me really mad. Other people keep their sheep and goats together: why are my bucks so against nature as to mount a different species?! Gross! (While it is possible that the sheep would be impregnated, it is not, apparently, likely, as one species has 54 chromosomes and the other has 60.) I briefly considered getting a rifle and putting an end to those miserable creatures, but, with Phil away, I wasn't sure how to hold the animals' heads still, nor, honestly, how to shoot the rifle. It's been a long time.