🔵 By Matthew Boivin. Photo by lauragrafie.
Calves! Calves! Calves! It’s definitely spring on the prison farm. The weather is warming up, and the babies are hitting the ground. Our first calf met the world in February, and it’s now the middle of May with calves still coming. Just this week, we moved our culled heifers away from our first-year cows, and I saw a set of spindly little legs with a pinkish, brown umbilical cord still dangling, no more than three days old. Even though it’s a joy to see all the new life of spring everywhere, it still means our work as stewards goes on.
Calving season on the prison farm is a time of change in more ways than one. The most obvious, if course, is the land waking up. The plants started their process in the middle of March as the grass took on a deep green hue. Through the winter, the grass was still greenish from the deep perennial root bed of Bermuda, Rye Grass, Fescue, and Johnson Grass. The cows are never really without grass, but when the Earth tilts its face to the sun to gather the warmth, Mother Nature blesses them with tender shoots, wide juicy blades and enough protein to carry them through the birthing process.
The trees join the celebration of the sun a few weeks after the grass and Buttercups. Even though the buttercups add a bright yellow covering to the pastures, they choke out the grass and have to be sprayed with weed killer. The Black Locust trees are the same way. They bloom earlier than the other trees and spread faster to choke out the pastures. Their green blooms are a sure sign of spring, but the long, sharp thorns those blooms grow into are hell on a horse and absolutely devastate a tractor tire.
Part of managing a herd is managing the land that keeps them alive. That means clearing out the weeds to allow the grass to grow, keeping the grass to about eight inches tall and letting the hay fields grow. When the wind blows across a tall field of Rye Grass making the stalks ripple and wave, I can’t help but think of winter food. And when I look out on a pasture of fresh cut Bermuda that rolls evenly to a shady grove of pecan trees next to a pond of waist deep water, I can’t help but be in awe of the life all around me.
The little calves gather together in groups of 20 or more in a pasture nursery as one old cow watches over them while the other cows graze. Their curious heads poke up with their oversize ears wide as we ride through them on horses. Thy haven’t yet learned to fear the horses so they just look at us in wonder. They lift their haunches to get their back feet under them to stand up, still curious about what we’re doing in their little camp.
With four little hooves on the ground and heads held high, they let us get close then dart ahead to turn and look back at us again. They let us get close then suddenly turn and dart away, kicking at us with their strongest natural defense. Then they’ll all take off running as if to see who is the fastest. A calf knows two things – run and run the other way. When they get older, this stampede instinct can be trouble, but for now it is funny in its own way.
Life wouldn’t be life without hardship and travail, and life on the prison farm is no different. We found an abandoned calf on March 1 born from an old cow with Cancer Eye – a disease that eventually leads to blindness and death as it devours the eye, optic nerve and brain stem. The prison does not pay for veterinary surgery so the cow is left to progress through the disease until death. Giving birth to the calf took the last of the cows nutrients. The cow was blind and couldn’t take care of herself, much less a calf as well. She died two days after we took her calf.
The calf is a healthy heifer with a patterned white face. One of the other guys named her Mask because the black pattern looks like a little mask but I refer to her as Little Hungry. The calf wouldn’t dare miss a bottle and hardly takes a breath while drinking unless I pull the bottle away. She’s two and a half months old now and dances around like a puppy when she sees a bottle coming. She’ll prance back and forth against the fence until we get close, then spin an excited little circle until she finds the nipple. She’s eating grain and grazing on her own now, so we’ll wean her off the bottle soon. By the end of the year, she’ll have a tag in her ear waiting for the scale to see if she’ll make weight for her forever home. The orphan calves are the least of the hardships faced in the spring season, though.
The replacement heifers from the 2021 calving season are dropping their calves, and that always leads to problems. The prison spent a ton of money artificially inseminating 75 heifers for low birth weight calves. Of those 75, only 29 embryos made it to become a fetus. That was a terrible success rate and a waste of money in my opinion. Two months after insemination, even before we knew the success rate, we put bulls with these heifers to cover the eventuality of an embryo failure. That’s where the problem came in.
The Angus bulls that sire the calves carry the DNA to become the 2,000 pound beasts lounging in our pasture right now. They’ve been held separate through the winter putting on weight anticipating May when they go back to work with the cows. These monster bulls throw some monster calves that can put a first year heifer through some labor pains for real. The calves grow to be bigger than the heifers can deliver, and we have to step in. We found our first heifer having problems delivering her calf in late April. That led to an experience that solidified my role as prison cowboy and will definitely lead to my becoming a full-fledged cattleman when I finally make it home.
Our plan was to drive her to the corral, catch her in the chute and pull the calf. The cow didn’t get that memo, though, and had plans of her own. One of the other guys rode over and said, „We can’t get her. She won’t drive.“ I picked up all the things I needed and climbed on the back of the truck. We would have to do this the old-fashioned way. We drove the truck into the pasture, and the other guy gets off his horse saying, „Here, Take Spider. Maybe you can get her.“ I left Bow at the barn because I can’t pull a calf on the back of a horse. Spider would have to do.
The cow gave us fits for a few minutes. She just wanted to be left alone to have this calf and kept running into the water or around tree stumps to get away from us. The Supervisor roped her by the front foot while Spider and I kept her out of the brambles. We followed her to a clearing, and the Supervisor dallied off to his saddle. It was tie to get to work. I threw my rope at her heels, but she stepped away from Spider and out of the lasso. I hopped off Spider and caught her on foot, holding enough pressure to keep her caught. Of course, she had a rope on one front foot and one back foot, so she was only half caught, but the other guy climbed back on Spider. We got the cow stretched out and secured, then I rolled up my sleeves and pulled on two shoulder-length plastic gloves. Things were about to get messy.
I knelt behind the cow and preached inside to find the two little feet I saw poking out earlier. The front feet were tucked nicely beneath the calf’s chin, and it was positioned high in the birth canal. She was just having problems pushing it out. The calf breached several hours earlier so I assumed it was already dead. If we didn’t act fast, though, we would lose the young cow, too. The contracted around my arm, squeezing me tight enough to hurt letting me know she was fighting just as hard as we were to get this calf on the ground. The calf slid forward, and I felt the problem right away. The calf’s nose was trapped on the cavity wall just below her tail. Every time mama pushed, the calf’s head would lift instead of tuck under. This calf wasn’t coming out without repositioning. I hooked a pulling chain around each foot and had one of the other guys hold light pressure against the chains while I waited for another contraction. I pushed the calf back, when she relaxed and slid my arm above its head holding it down as the other guy pulled with all his might. It was a fight, but between me holding the calf’s head, the other guy pulling, and mama pushing, the calf’s nose finally poked through.
The tongue was lolling out of the calf’s mouth and swollen to the point blood blisters formed along the underside. She had squeezed this calf so hard, all the blood was trapped in its head. It still wasn’t out, and we had a long way to go. I grabbed a chain and pulled alongside the other guy, but even with both of us straining from the effort, the calf was lodged. It would take more strength than we had to get this calf free. I held both chains tight while the other guy got the calf-puller ready.
The calf puller is an eight foot long threaded bar with a cradle on the end that fits snugly against the back of her legs. The chains fit on hooks attached to a handle that puts pressure on the chain effectively pulling the calf out one click at a time. I pulled the handle while the other guy held the puller straight. Slowly but surely, with one pull of the handle, then let her relax, then pull the handle again, we got the calf’s head and shoulders free. I took the puller away and tugged on the chains by hand. Pulling a calf always runs the risk of causing damage to the reproductive tract, so it is important to be mindful of all the possibilities.
When the calf’s hips got to the cow’s pelvis, it got hung up again. Poor mama was just too narrow for this calf. The chains were off, and the puller was out of the way. We had already been too long, so I grabbed the rope off her back leg, putting it around the calf’s front feet. Spider would finish pulling this calf for us. I held the rope low while Spider took one step backward at a time. The calf came out along with the rest of the amniotic fluid, and we all gave a sigh relief.
The Supervisor asked if it was alive. I saw its lolling tongue and glazed eyes, answering, „It’s dead.“ The other guy who helped me pull the calf asked, „What’s that moving in his chest?“ I was so firm in my assumption I didn’t even look beyond the signs confirming my assumption. The calf had a heartbeat! I went into overdrive using paper towels to clean out its nose and sticking my fingers into its throat to clear out all the fluid. Its back legs kicked feebly as it struggled to breathe, so I held its jaws closed and put my mouth over its nostrils, blowing air into this little fellows lungs. I repeated the process three ties, but its heartbeat visibly slowed. In the end, his tongue was so filled with blood, it blocked his air passage. Mama essentially squeezed him to death trying to birth a calf way too big for her. The limited calf CPR just wasn’t enough to overcome the trauma of its birth.
The next calf with problems had a nose the size of a grapefruit, and he was already breached. I didn’t see any feet under his nose, though. When we got mama roped and lying on her side, I let one of the other guys take the lead. He said he wanted to learn, so here’s your chance. After a moment, he let a scream. Mama contracted around his arm, and he couldn’t take the pain. It was all too much for him so he got out of the way. I guess learning wasn’t all that important. I knelt behind her and reached inside to find the calf’s front legs tucked under its belly trapped by her pelvis. Each leg had to be pulled into position before the real work started. We had hell pulling that calf but mama made it through. Poor thing was mad as hell too. She charged us but was so sore, she stumbled when her back gave out.
Of the 46 natural-bred heifers, only four had problems calving (and only one of those survived). That gave us an 8.6% problem rate compared to the low 38.6% insemination rate. We have 185 replacement heifers for next year’s calving season, all of which will be bull-covered – no more taxpayer money wasted on artificial insemination. If the percentage holds true, we’ll have to pull 16 calves next year. Not something to look forward to if only four of those will survive, but that’s the chaotic beauty of life itself. Even the glorious miracle of birth is wrought with uncertainty and pain.
That may be why I like spring so much. The blossoming of new life after a cold winter reminds me that I will soon be allowed to come to life again after a long winter. I am like a tuft of grass holding on to a root bed waiting for the sun to shine on my face so I can grow and flourish. Even the little calves running and playing in packs along the levee remind me that a family of my own waits for me to find them. My life has been on pause, but when I finally turn my face to the sun, I know I will be like a new calf kicking up my heels in the sunshine feeling the strength of my legs and filled with a joy I cannot contain in my flesh.