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Anonymous
Okay.... day five... I might as well be nursing the calf myself as to fight that 1200 pound cow to TRY to get her to stand still and let the calf suck. She kicks like a son of a gun and three days in hobbles didn't change her mind much. We took the hobbles off, and back to knocking the daylight out of the calf she went. If she isn't kicking the stuffing out of the little bugger, she is head butting it across the pen or the pasture.... I don't know how bad the calf is hurt, but I don't trust her mom with her, so I take the calf away. Mom comes to find the baby and then won't let her suck. I stand there and hold the mother and she may or may not stand still. The calf sucks at the teat for twenty to thirty minutes and still acts hungry. Tonight, the cow bawled the whole time the calf was nursing and the calf REALLY acted hungry afterwards, so I broke down and fed it a bottle. It ate the whole two quarts. I was in a cow camp one time and saw cows hobbled and almost in straight jackets while the guys tried to make them mother up. I don't know how successful they were. In the morning at six am, I will try again, but I just don't know what to think. Do I have a bottle baby here? If I leave the calf out in the field with the mother, the calf will follow her, but the cow never touches the calf. The calf is spunky enough, but I just don't know what to make of all of this. How many more days should I keep trying?
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