We had a super busy weekend. Last Thursday the cow we bought about a month ago to be our future milker had to have an abcess drained. We had noticed a large lump and it just wouldn't go away. The vet drained it (extremely icky) and packed it with iodine laced gauze. We brought Misti (our milker's name) over here to keep her out of the mud and to be able to care for the wound. So, she joined Sparky behind our chicken coop. Misit is a beautiful and tame Dexter cow (will get a pic today), but she is not halter trained (something we will do once she is here full time). So getting her from the trailer to the pen ended up being a one hour chase around our property (she only had like 40 feet she had to walk). Not fun. She is doing very well though and really, I like having her here, even if it isn't full time yet.
So Misti was kind of a pain, but our real trouble started last Friday. Ryan met the kids and I at the park to celebrate Asher's birthday. Around 3:00 we were on our way home when my father in law called to tell us that one of our White Parks was down. Not good. Long story short, she is still down. It took a bulldozer to get her moved to a pen. We were wading in no lie 6 to 10 inches of mud (thank you unending rain). She is still alive but pretty bad. She is eating and drinking however and the vet cannot say what her issue is because all her vital signs were good. It seems strange to us. She is an expensive cow and so we are not willing to just let her die, but at the same time we can't make her more expensive by adding vet bills and treatments that may not even work. Very tricky. While I am not attached per se to this cow, I certainly feel bad for her and do not want her to die.
Another issue with having this cow down is her calf. All of our 4 cows have calves. This cow happens to be Sparky's mom (or bottle fed calf). So with her being down, it leaves her calf (Sparky's twin) alone. Now I have been impressed with how well the 4 White Parks tend to take care of one another. We have even see cows nursing off mama's that weren't their own. After talking to the vet we decided to take Sparky's twin here with us (we left her with mama in the pen one night, but mama is not milking and it was pointless). The vet told us that mama had very little milk left anyways. So Goofy (the kids named her) is here and isnt reall happy about it. She is like a loose cannon, although she seems to like being with Misti and Sparky back in the pen. She will not eat any milk replacer (which is concerning) but will eat some hay. She is very scrawny. We have a call into the vet and I plan to ask her about mama and the calf.
So yeppers, a busy weekend. Every spare minute that was not spent on the cows was spent building fences for the cows (both here and at the in laws). You know though, I don't mind spending our time like that. It feels purposeful to me and we get to do it together as a family.
Oh, FYI, our "farm" now has a name. When Misti's registration was transferred to us the guy we bought her from needed our farm name. That got us thinking and after going over many options, we decided on "The Familia Bendecida Farm." It means "Blessed Family" in Spanish. It is kind of cool because Jorge (Gideon's foster brother) helped us with the translation through e-mail. He is such a neat kid!
Julie
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