by Jan Fielden
I am proud to announce that little Fedora has finally joined up with the Yearling Herd!! She was a loner from the very beginning. Her Mamma died four days after Fedora was born. They were in the Back Herd. Fedora had four days to be around other cows but she always came back to where her Mamma was lying on the ground. She had to take care of herself because her Mamma was dying. We were hoping against hope that she wouldn’t die. The vet did everything he could do for her but after the four days of struggling, the cow died. Our great vet helped to bring Fedora up to the main corral and we raised her there for almost six months. She was not very friendly, but I finally made friends with her if I didn’t forget to give her time to warm up to me, every time I came to feed her.
One time, she head butted me after I had turned my back on her; I saw that as an unfriendly act which I didn’t appreciate at all. Fedora would stick her head out of the gate whenever the Middle Herd came up. They would all check her out and it finally came to the point that I saw her licking a mother cow. I had hopes then that she would be a joiner. When we let her out of the corral, she proved that hope was not going to see the light of day. So, then we thought we had come up with the right decision; we would move her to the Yearling Herd where there were fewer cows.
The Yearlings moved out of the Yearling Pasture to the Horse Pasture, but Fedora didn’t go with them. Like other things in life, sometimes when you just ignore the problem it will resolve itself. That’s what happened with this problem and we, at the Red Oak Ranch are grateful our little girl, Fedora, is following the herd now.
