Twelve hours and Racer's Calf

On Monday afternoon the 3^rd of March, Racer had a little bull calf. When I left to go home at a little before 6:00 p.m., it was alive and kicking. A little more than 12 hours later, when I checked on it on the way to work the following morning at a little after 6:00 a.m., it was dead. There were several factors that lead to the calf’s death but ultimately, it was my fault.

We have always left the cows out in the field to calve and we have had pretty good success over the years. But previously the cows had been calving near the end of March or early in April when the weather is generally much milder. There were about four or more inches of snow on the ground on the 3^rd and it was raining pretty heavily.

The calf was active although still covered with birth fluids and Racer hadn’t gotten up yet when I found them. They were pretty close to the barn and they were pretty obvious when I went to feed the cows. I was a little bit concerned because of the snow and rain so, after feeding the other cows, I got some old towels and started drying the calf off. This prompted Racer to get up and start licking the calf and nuzzling it to encourage to get up.

I thought I would let Racer take it from that point so I walked the dog. When I got back with the dog, Racer was still licking and nuzzling and the calf was responding. I was still a little concerned but it looked like things were going to be okay. Gigi’s calf, born barely two days before, on morning of Saturday the 1^st was quite active and was actually skipping around a bit where the snow had been trampled down, having survived the heavy snow and rain just the day before. I have seen a lot of calves born in heavy, cold rain survive quite well. Racer’s calf last year was born on a very cold, wet, miserable day and we had a calf one year born in a northeaster that survived despite having spent the first few hours of life covered in snow driven by a howling wind. The weather the night of the 3^rd was moderating and warming up and the snow was melting fast. So I decided to head home without taking further action. Sacha is generally quite worn out by the kids at the end of the day so I try to give her a break as much as I can when I am around plus, I also like to see my kids.

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, all I can say is: Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!

In thermodynamics there is a principle called latent heat. This refers to the amount of energy required to cause a substance to change its state, for instance from a solid to a liquid or a liquid to a vapor. For water it is fairly straightforward I believe. If it takes 100 calories to bring 1 gram of ice to the melting point, then it takes an additional 100 calories to actually cause that ice to melt. It then takes another hundred calories to bring that water to the point of vaporization, at which point, it takes another hundred calories to cause it to vaporize so you can dry off.

These numbers might not be exactly correct for water but water does require an enormous amount of energy input or removal to cause a state change. This makes water an excellent temperature buffer. And, because heat will flow from a warmer area to a colder area, it also makes water and excellent robber of body heat. This is way many hypothermia cases in humans occur at temperatures well above freezing.

I believe I have stated before that cattle are incredibly tough critters but they are not indestructible and asking an output of energy that is enough to both heat rainwater and melt snow from a newborn calf that is at its most vulnerable is evidently too much. Dry snow, if the temperature isn’t too cold is survivable or cold rain but not both rain and snow.

Of course anybody with a lick of sense that has been around these animals as long as I have should know this. I knew having calves early in the year could be problematic for their survival. I knew that calves are very vulnerable in the first few hours of life. And I knew about the principles of latent heat and how much energy water can rob from a warm body. Yet I wasn’t able to put this together that night and figure out that I had better get that calf out of the weather if I wanted it to survive. This is a perfect example of a failure to apply theoretical knowledge to a practical purpose. 

Probably one night out of the weather to dry off, warm up and get some colostrum and milk to generate more energy would have been enough to ensure the survival of Racer’s calf, judging from the Gigi’s two day old calf. Of course we aren’t really set up to shelter cows anywhere either in or out of the pasture. The barn would have been a good place but I don’t have a gate on it to keep the cow from wandering off.  Hindsight again being 20/20, I could have put some hay in the stock trailer and taken the calf in there. The cows don’t like going into the trailer but Racer might have followed her calf in. I also could have driven back up after dinner to check on the calf. In previous situations like this, I was living right there and could go out and quickly check to see if the calf was up yet, and, if not, take action. I was pretty tired though so I took the chance that it would be okay.

If the calf had been born a couple of days earlier or a couple of days later (the snow was all gone by the 6th and the air temperature was quite a bit warmer) or if I had taken action, the calf would have probably been just fine. But, it is too late to do anything about it now. This spring I plan to build a shelter for early calves and their mothers at the edge of the pasture in order to deal with situations like this in the future. Hopefully we can keep it from filling up with stuff we don’t need in between calving seasons. I have heard of cattle outfits both big and small that figure on losing calves due to inclement weather and many people try to time their cow’s calving, for milder months, like our cows used to do.

We are a very small outfit and every calf really counts. Now there will be one less beef for us to sell two years down the road and that much less income. But the worst part for me is the thought that the calf might have suffered before it died and I stood by and did almost nothing. I don’t know how much it actually suffered. Newborns are pretty out of it and I don’t know as it would have recognized any pain or discomfort and certainly not fear before it lost consciousness but, no matter how much or how little it did suffer, that suffering is on my hands. I felt sick to my stomach and had a hard time concentrating at work all day Tuesday (I also had a kind of trying day at work due to circumstances unrelated to the calf’s death).

All that being said, I guess too, that this is a part of life. People make mistakes.  Things die (I feel really bad about that calf but in the end it was just a calf. I truly don’t envy anyone who has to make decisions that are life or death for another human being). I imagine that there are a certain number of newborn animals in the wild that die due to inclement weather, especially since many births seem to center around storm systems. As I stated previously, I have heard that it is a pretty common thing for some cattle outfits, especially those who use open range, to lose calves to weather and predators.

Sacha brought the girls up Tuesday evening to meet me after work and take Skyeball for a walk. I hadn’t had a chance to remove the calf’s carcass so Vashti saw it. She didn’t get upset at all. I don’t know if she really understands the concept of death yet. I didn’t try to avoid the dead calf. Living out here, I am sure it won’t be the last dead animal she sees. Rather than being morbid, I hope this gives her a better understanding and appreciation of life and how fragile and fleeting it can be and how death is also part of living.

I dragged the carcass out into the woods behind the pasture, an unpleasant chore. It will now feed some other animals, probably coyotes and maybe some other critters, maybe even eagles if it gets dragged into the open where the eagles can get to it. The crows and ravens had already been working on it by the afternoon. Later in the year, during the summer, turkey vultures would probably get a share of the carcass too.

In this case it seems that a little ignorance, inattention, laziness and tiredness on my part were all at play. I hope I don’t end up learning this lesson again.