by Jan Fielden
Our little miss “Rose” is in the corral with her Momma. She is a sweetheart and of course she was named and of course we know that should not be done! But it just can’t be helped with certain little calves.
Rose was not nursing her Momma and so they were both put in the corral hoping the confinement would keep Momma from wandering off. Still Rose didn’t nurse which led us to believe that either mastitis or a wax plug was causing the problem.
We called the vet to come check the situation out. Meanwhile, we fed Rose who took to the bottle right away and gobbled the milk right down!
Her Momma was not too happy about this situation but she would just have to get use to it for a few days. A few days that has turned in to several months.
The vet came and lo, and behold, Momma had no milk only water! He said he had seen that a few times but not very often.
She was never going to have any milk which means we will be raising yet another calf but we really don’t mind.
We still have Lucinda who is two years old now and we raised her from the moment of her birth as her Momma died.
The vet also told us to keep the Momma for a while because it would be good for the calf as she needed to be nurtured.
We also have some soon-to-be Yearlings in the corral and they are very curious about the bottle! They normally come over and check it out when I am giving it to Rose.
Nothing, absolutely nothing is ever dull at the Red Oak Ranch!
