Chapter 9 ~ A Bevy of Bovines

She was three days old when Carmon brought her home with him.  Her mother was a milk cow, one of many at a nearby dairy.  Her father was a Charolais, a breed unknown to me, but one raised primarily for beef.  The calf had inherited her father’s broader backside and solid honey coloring, which is why she had been chosen.  Carmon named her Sucky because the only way he could keep her from bawling was to let her suck on his fingers all the way home while her brother, a little black steer, made nary a sound.

Sucky was the first bottle baby the kids had raised and they took to the routine almost as quickly as Sucky took to the bottle.  The bottle, which we bought at the feed store, was huge and held a quart of milk replacement bovine formula.  Some of our later bottle-fed calves did not do so well on the formula, but with Sucky and her brother we had beginner’s luck.  Sucky, in particular, loved the bottle and thrived.  The only problem was that as she got older and was ready to wean, she wanted no part of the weaning process.  To make matters worse, she had grown two little horns by that time and wasn’t above butting us with them.  If Carmon or any of the kids went near the pasture at feeding time, Sucky would bawl.  It they actually went into the pasture, she would butt at their legs until they fed her.  The bigger she grew, the bigger the problem became.

This really became tiresome when she was about eight months old and Carmon brought home another calf.  It was just like having a new baby in the family.  Sucky moaned and bawled and refused to eat.  It wasn’t long before she started to lose weight and look ill.

Carmon talked to a neighbor of ours who was a cattleman and he recommended some medication we could buy at the feed store.  The only catch was that it came only in shot form and had to be injected into her hindquarter.  By this time, she was close to her full-grown size and weighed several hundred pounds.  Carmon was afraid that the needle would spook her, so he asked me to stand in front of her and hold onto her head so she wouldn’t be frightened.  I did so, bracing my knees against either side of her head and holding on to her horns.  Carmon swabbed alcohol on her haunch then plunged in the needle.  Sucky bellowed and reared her head upwards and backwards.  I lost my grip as she threw me upwards over her head and onto her back.  At almost the same instant, she began to run, full tilt, across the length of the pasture with me, perched on the back of her neck, backwards!  I was told that her nostrils flared and her ears went back, but all that I saw was her tail, high in the air, waving like a battle flag.   I instinctively wrapped my arms and legs around the cow’s midsection and laid flat against her back, holding on to her sides for dear life.  Fortunately for me, when she reached the end of the pasture, she slowly stopped running which allowed me to slip off of her back unharmed.  All I can remember, aside from the terror of the moment, was Carmon and the kids doubled over with laughter.  Carmon slapped his knees and laughed until his eyes watered.  I didn’t know whether I was madder at the cow or the husband!

~ ~ ~

Other calves followed, about one every six months or so.  At first, they had some fairly creative names, but eventually, Carmon settled once again on functional.  Therefore we owned Tee Bone, Porter House, Sir Loin, and so forth.  A few were female, like Sucky, but most were male.  They came to us as little bulls, but left us as fattened steers.  Turning them from bulls into steers is a little bit of animal husbandry that I will leave to the agricultural science teachers and your imagination.  Suffice it to say, Carmon did it and it worked.

In fact, Carmon never raised a bull calf as a bull.  He always neutered them.  He told me that he did so because as they grew, their testosterone would have kicked in and they would have become too aggressive and unpredictable.  You couldn’t keep a bull in a regular barbed-wire pasture or corral, but had to construct a bullpen, one that was specially reinforced.  One of our neighbors, however, was less cautious.  His bull was pure dairy stock, a Holstein.  Our neighbor named him Dummy.  Strangely enough, Dummy was fairly placid for a bull.  Most of the time, you’d see him contentedly grazing in the neighbor’s pasture.  Once in awhile, Dummy would get out and take a little stroll down the lane, but he never seemed to bother anyone or anything.  At least that’s what we all thought.

When Sucky was a little over a year old, Carmon decided he wanted to pasture her at his sister, Arlene’s, house for awhile.  We had three steers on pasture at that time and were buying hay to supplement.  Arlene had as much acreage as we did and no animals on her pasture, so she readily agreed to the arrangement. 

Sucky had been at Arlene’s house for several months when Arlene called us with a problem.  Sucky was growing teats and she had developed an udder, like a full-grown cow rather than a young heifer.  Carmon and I hopped into the truck and went over there immediately.  As soon as I saw Sucky, I knew instantly what had happened.  Sucky was about to become a mother!  It amazed me that neither Arlene nor Carmon had thought of the possibility.   After all, Arlene was a nurse and Carmon a "farmer."  Chalk one up for the city gal!   

“But how can she be pregnant?  How could it have happened?” Carmon asked.  “She was on our pasture, then Arlene’s.  She never got loose.” 

It was then that I reminded him of Dummy’s occasional meanderings down the street.  Apparently Dummy was nobody’s dummy after all.

© Gebara Education, 2001. No portion of this book may be copied by any method without the express written permission of the author

Picture of Charolais calf from www.flickr.com

Picture of calf bottle from www.valleyvet.com

Picture of Charolais yearling from www.123rf.com

Picture of Holstien bull from www.nrel.gov

Picture of young milk cow from www.pics.picmv.com