Page 35 of The Hardest Part

Supplies at the ready, he brought her to an open pen and secured her in the headlock gate. Patting her flank, he soothed her. “It’s gonna be okay, Mama. Promise. I ain’t lost a calf yet.”

Now and then, a cow, especially a heifer, needed a little help. Exhausted Mamas. Dystocias. Breech births. Billy had just about seen it all.

Carefully, he wrapped the OB chain around the baby’s hooves and attached the calf puller to it. “Ready when you are, Mama. Lemme see that baby.”

With every contraction, the heifer heaved, and he pulled.

“Thatagirlll, push.”

Billy looked up. In a fountain of bloody fluid, forearms and a muzzle with a wiggling pink tongue appeared.

“Let’s get her done.” Jubilant, he whooped. It was a tight squeeze, but the calf was presenting in the proper position. “Do it again.”

At the next contraction, gripping the cold metal handles, Billy exerted steady pressure. Once the head was born, the rest of the calf needed to come out quickly or risk taking amniotic fluid into its lungs.

Mama lost the strength to make that final push. He let go of the puller, yanking the calf out by its forearms the rest of the way himself. Not moving, the baby just laid there.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Tearing away what remained of the membrane, Billy nudged the calf. “C’mon little buddy.”

A rush of fluid exited the newborn’s mouth, but otherwise, it remained still.

Vigorously, he rubbed the baby’s back and moved its legs to stimulate him. Then, with time in slow motion, after what seemed like an eternity, the calf took a feeble breath.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

“Thank fuck.” Billy got up off his haunches and went over to the heifer, who at last could rightfully be called a cow. He released her from the headlock. “Told ya, I ain’t lost one yet. You got yourself a little bull.”

“You done good, Billy.” Kellan leaned over the pen, his arms dangling inside. “Now, get him suckin’. Two more heifers dropped calves while you were wrenchin’ out this one.”

But the little guy wouldn’t suck and his mother wanted nothing to do with him.

Cows typically lick their calves clean, get them to stand, and offer them an udder. A newborn calf must feed within an hour of its birth. Sooner is even better. Its ability to absorb antibodies from colostrum, the mother’s first milk, rapidly diminishes in the first day of life.

“What’s the matter, 2079? Don’t you like him?”

She replied with a throaty moo.

“C’mon now, you gotta feed your baby.”

In the end, he did the mothering for her. Billy milked the precious colostrum from the dam’s udder and fed it to her calf through an esophageal tube. Next, he dried the shivering baby off as best he could and placed him in a warmer.

“Don’t you worry none, little fella. She’ll come ‘round.” Looking down at his big brown eyes, he rubbed the newborn’s head. “And I’ll be by to see how you’re doin’ in a little bit.”

Three hours and ten new calves later, with the storm raging outside, Billy sat on the straw-covered floor of the orphan pen with the sixty-pound bull’s head on his lap, coaxing him to feed from a bottle. His mother still didn’t want him. “I’m sorry, buddy.”

“She knows.”

He glanced up to see Kellan.

“His mama knows. Birth weight should be eighty pounds. Bull’s too small to make it.”

“So small I had to yank him out of her, right? He’s gonna be just fine.” Billy smiled down at the calf. “I’m gonna take him home to Em. She’s always wanted a bottle baby to raise.”

“He makes it through the night, you can have him.” Kellan squeezed his shoulder. “When you’re finished feedin’ him, I need you.”

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