Well at least tell us the story. We can make our own mental images...
Does the TikTok video not show up on my post?l can see it here in the post you last quoted.
I have told the story here before. Helen is the first- calf heifer I was supposed to pen with nurse cows (so she could be watched if she needed help calving) in February, but I ended up in the ER and admitted to the hospital the day I was supposed to move her. The next day she was moved across the road with the herd.
She calved on her own just fine and I saw her baby stand for the first time, but she wouldn't let him eat. Bossman and I went back to tag him, but Bossman decided not to because she was nursing. a few hours later, our worst storm of the year blew in with sustained 70 mph winds, thunder, lightening, pounding rain. We were out getting calves back into the pasture from roadside at 3am, but a dozen or more were lost in the conservation strip until daylight. Helen was waiting with the other moms at the strip and claimed the wrong calf when I pushed them out. I didn't find her baby. I don't know where her baby had been hiding, but it wasn't until the next day I found him bawling. I put him in the pen and drove her to it, her "adopted" calf following along. In the pen she didn't know her own calf and just wanted out. She almost stomped her calf when he tried to nurse, so I let her go. I named her baby Murphy's Law and took him to the nurse cows as an orphan. Murphy was well fed by Elizabeth and Elanore who are loving nurses, but he didn't get truly "mothered" at the nursery.
*** not in the video ***
Meanwhile, I watched the mother of Helen's adopted calf (who I came to think of as Nina) look for her baby, standing where I assume she last saw it and walking back and forth to the conservation strip. I couldn't drive her from that path. She finally went to water and found her baby who wouldn't leave Helen. Over time, her baby went back to her, but also stayed with Helen. Eventually, Nina and Helen seemed to be inseparable. They did everything together and even groomed each other. Helen was nursing the calf up until my back problem started at the end of June, but something must have happened while I was out because Helen was dry when the herd was moved to my back fence in early August.
*** back to the video ***
The herd has been moved back to the pasture adjoining the nursery and the nursery has been turned out to the herd. I was out with the cows one of my first days back and turned around and saw Helen and Murphy together being all chummy. Helen, a big cow, pushed off any cows that crowded Murphy too much and she gave him gentle licks on his head and face. It gave me a glimpse of what might have been if I hadn't gone to the hospital and had gotten her penned back in February. She was a good and attentive momma to that adopted calf. I'm sure she'd have been a great mom to Murphy. She would have gotten all of the sweet calf kisses Murphy gave me at the nursery.
I see them together almost every time I go to the pasture. They found each other just in time to be separated forever because we're weaning on Monday.
