Jun 6, 2016 3 min read

We had to separate some cows last week, as a mother cow had gotten sick and needed some attention. Her baby remained in the field with the herd as we spent a few days trying to rehab the mother. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it.

The next morning, we went out to get her calf, who is a little over three months old and capable of surviving without her mom, although she won’t thrive as well without some extra attention. Our plan was to bring her to the barn and supplement her feedings with milk replacer – if we can teach her to nurse from abottle at this late date – or grain if we can’t.

When we went to the field, we saw that all of the calves were standing in a separate paddock away from the herd, so we snagged our chance. We ran out and closed the gate and then opened it only when calves we didn’t need were nearby. In under five minutes, we had our girl alone in the field. It was beautiful. (We should have known something was up.)

We put our horse and a yearling into the pasture with her to keep her company and let her adjust to her new surroundings. The plan was to give her some time before running her into the barn to begin working with her.

That night, I awoke around 1 a.m. to a cow bawling insistently. Knowing my husband would also be awake, I asked what he thought was going on. He said he didn’t know, but since it was only one cow complaining, the likelihood was that everything was fine. He said we would go up at first light to check things out.

Several times that night, I awoke to her crying. By 5:30, when the sun wasn’t quite up, but it was light enough to see, I was up and dressed, ready to discover the problem. As I passed by my desk, I glanced down at my paperwork and saw that the tag number of the calf we had separated didn’t match up to the tag number of the cow we had lost. We had taken the wrong baby from the field!

We hurried out to the gate and saw the mother standing as close as she could get to the fence without touching the electric current. A hundred yards away, behind a second fence, the calf stood as close to her fence as she could get.

Quickly, we opened the gate and then stepped out of the way. The cow took off, barreling toward the fence where her calf stood. Then, we drove down to the other field’s gate and allowed the calf to exit. The bawling stopped immediately, and in the silence you could hear the calf nursing and the cow licking the baby’s back. All was again right in the world.

And as for the correct calf? Well, at press time, she is still in the field with the herd. Apparently, word spread that we are trying to take somebody out of there, so they are balking at following us anywhere right now. We’ll keep trying, as it is truly to her benefit for us to move her, and hopefully our next attempt will be met with better results.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.