Sunday Night: Bring On Mama

The boys and I enjoyed a few chapters of Homer Pricebefore they went to bed.

I fed Belle outside. She wasn't as easy to contain, nor as interested to simply sit and let me put food into her.

After I cornered her, I had to make her lie down. Unlike Chloe the dog, I couldn't simply push on her backend. I did what the book said: reach over, grab the front leg and the flap of skin at the flank, lift up, and set down.

In life, it wasn't quite that easy. Ever tried to grasp the skin of the flank and use it as a handhold? And to lift so all four legs are off the ground (since even one back leg still in contact with earth creates difficulties) was more tricky than I expected. Lifting by both a front and back leg didn't feel good, so I quickly gave up that idea.

At last, she was down. I straddled her and kept her front leg tucked. After all our hours together yesterday, she didn't seem terribly happy to see me! But she took in diluted milk.

Joe, meanwhile, crawled into the pen through the cattle panel (!) and promptly stepped—barefooted—in a cowpie. He hates getting manure on his feet, so he began to fuss.

Then Bethany, anxiously watching from outside the enclosure, noticed Chloe approach the outside of the fence. She charged our dog, long horns through the wire.

Chloe ran off, and Joe began to cry in earnest. This didn't much help Belle take her food more calmly, but, after almost an hour, she had her food in her.

We watched her, and saw still a little diarrhea, but mostly urine.

I went down to do a final check on Belle, who had, at last count, had two pints of electrolytes, three pints of full milk, mixed with nine pints of water today. Her ears were, again, cold, but she had no scours at all. Her smell was much improved over the horridness of yesterday, and as I thought about it, her stomach had no longer made awful gurglings when I fed her.

I thought about bringing her back inside, but how could I maneuver the two gates by myself, with a watchful mama paying close attention? Do I have the emotional strength to once again set up a pen in the living room, to once again clean up the animal waste all over the floor?

Further, if the baby is cold, wouldn't her mother's bulk be better? I had milked the cow thoroughly this evening (4 pounds even), so there wouldn't be an unlimited supply.

Besides, I thought it very interesting: when Belle first went back into her pen, she peed near the fence, and Bethany did every contortion possible to lick up some of that urine. I know that human mother's milk changes based on what the baby needs that feeding (which is why even frozen breastmilk is not as good as straight from the source). Wouldn't Bethany's milk also change based on the needs of her baby?

Also, since we don't know what caused the scours, whether bacteria, virus, parasite, or simply overeating, it's possible that the bacteria, say, is now dead, and Belle is simply hungry, ready to gain strength.

With all these thoughts in mind, I opened the gate and let the mama and baby reunite.

The morning will show whether this 48 hour hiatus was at all helpful.

May the Lord bless Belle this night.