And then there was none...

D-day was Monday. We all knew it was coming. We all knew they were livestock. This is a small farm with farm animals not pets. Cows are stupid and dirty. They make a mess out of your field. The pasture is destroyed in places and need to be reseeded. There is cow poop everywhere. We had to worry at times if the fence was on or if the bull got out with the neighbor girls. We got up at least twice in the middle of the night to see if the fence was on and went into the woods to see if they were all still on our property. We had to worry if they were getting enough food and water. When we went out of town we had to hassle the neighbors or the folks to watch them. Livestock are a hassle all around. #84 got sick his last two weeks and cost us $ 160 to try to make his last days more comfortable. Is that good husbandry? I don't know. But it was the right thing to do. So Monday we were all a little happy for them to go right? They will be providing cheap meat for are friends and family. We might be able to save a little money on meat now. They were just cows. If that was the case then why would we look out the kitchen window wanting to see them in the pasture? Hopefully the next group of cows will be just like these, just cows.

A little history...

Last year we bought our first home together.  We think we scored a great deal.  Three bedroom, one bath home on just shy of 5 acres.  It came with a shop with a covered area on the back for our sailboat and a detached garage.  The house and property needed alot of work.  We worked on our house all summer long.  Now it is a four bedroom, two bath home.  We bought this property to have animals and a garden, maybe even make it a small farm.

This blog will record how we progress into becoming a Small Farm

I have seen alot of gross things...

...but watching the vet "syphon drain" a cow's stomach rates up there pretty high. Thank God my dad came up to help with the vet call this week. (Notice how he gets all the fun cow-related call outs? The castration, the loose bull, the stomach pumping...)


So, #84 had a huge air bubble in his rumen and needed the pressure relieved apparently. This involved some pretty exciting equipment and maneuvering on the part of both the vet and my dad. The really great thing is that since I had the baby strapped to the front of me I became just an observer instead of a participant.

First, he inserted a 1 1/2 inch piece of PVC pipe about a foot and a half long into his mouth and clipped it with one of those bull nose-clippy things right to his nose. The pipe was just so he didn't bite down on the 6 feet of garden hose he threaded through it down into his stomach. He used what looked like a bicycle pump to pump ~3 gallons of water into his stomach via the tubing. He was supposed to syphon-barf his stomach contents, but it didn't work. Hmm. Add another 3 gallons or so? Yep!! He pumped some more and when he disconnected the hose all hell broke loose!!! You have got to be joking me.

#84 barfed probably 5 gallons of green, half-digested, stank, rank, absolutely stinky cow vomit all over the stall. And it wasn't like he stood still either - he was all poltergeist about it. His head was thrashing all over and the vet and my dad jumped back while he barfed, and barfed, and barfed some more. I had ring-side seats for the whole thing and barfed a little in my mouth. Gross.

They pumped him full of electrolytes and sent him on his way.

$165 later and an entire day spent scrubbing the stall down, we're good to go.

You couldn't pay me enough to do that.