We're All Going to be Sore in the Morning

A 100lb calf was born recently.  When a calf is that big sometimes their legs can't hold them up right away, so we knew we needed to take him and his mother to the barn so we could make sure he stood  up and got the colostrum.  I figured out real quick that the cow was one of my Pop's (meaning ONLY Pop could handle her), so I went and sat on the other side of the fence and watched the pair until my dad got home.  As some of you may know, Pop is getting old.   He does the supervising now and dad and I do the work.   My dad is tough as nails and not many cows get the best of him, but this cow was the meanest of the mean. In fact, she was meaner than nails.  While I got the gates ready he went up and got the cow and calf driven to me.  When he got the cow into the lane and all heck broke loose. She turned on Dad and he tucked tail and ran simply because he didn't have anything to defend himself with.  We tried till the last second to make her go calmly but when a 1,700lb momma cow is coming at you because she THINKS you are going to harm her calf you have to fight back or get hurt.  We got her into the barn by acting tough.  I was trembling in my boots and swinging a stick. 
  When we got into the barn, it got worse. She ran at dad, butted the gate at me and wound up with a bloody nose all the while she running circles around her calf!  Dad, the brave man he is, used himself as bait.  He would tease her so she would come at him because she couldn't be moved like a cow without a calf.  He finally got her out into the working area and she backed dad back into the barn.  I then got the nerve to pick up the calf and brought him to the front of the chute thinking the cow would follow me and the calf and get in the chute.  I was very thankful it worked.   Once she was in the chute we checked her ear for a tattoo, drained her udder into a bottle to feed the calf and dewormed her!  The next morning we were all sore and all I could think about was having to go back in the barn with her.


           It will not let me upload the many pictures I took, I even tried the best picture but no!  I will post this for now and keep trying to get the pictures, they make reading it so much better!