Oh the weekend

It has been a great weekend but just like most weekends they never seem to be long enough. We are still calving and I talked to Brad yesterday and we are officially under 30! I think the number is 29 to be exact but at this point who is really counting besides Branden, Brad, and I!

Yesterday we had to call the vet out because we had a lady down that couldn't get up. Brad was out feeding and spotted her and called and got Dr. Tim on the way. Branden and I waited for Dr. Tim and showed him the way to the lady. When we got out to her she had gone down on a little island in the middle of a pond, figures. After taking her temperature and a quick feel of her uterus the vet had it narrowed down to two culprits, milk fever or grass tetany. Grass tetany is due to low levels of magnesium in the cow. The ladies are out chasing the green grass right now and the immature grass doesn't have all the nutrients yet that they need. It happens most often in cows that are nursing calves two months old or less. Milk fever happens when the cows calcium level is too low.  It happens most often 10 or so days after the mama has had her calf. She puts all the calcium she has stored into the milk for her newborn calf and doesn't have enough for herself.  Bad news both of the culprits can end in the cow dying.

Good news is both of these can be treated and that is exactly what we did. Dr. Tim took some blood so he could go back and test to see which culprit we were dealing with and we gave her two bottles of mineral solution through an IV and she was up and out of there in no time. Turns out she had milk fever, if it was grass tetany the guys would have to keep a close eye on the herd to make sure no other cows were being affected.

We are donating two of our goat kids to an FFA member in a nearby town so we sorted the two off that he is taking with their mamas so we can start the weaning process. Man those goats are stubborn and make a lot of noise when they don't want to do something! Certainly not like handling cows that is for sure.

We ended the night with dinner and game night with some of our friends. It was great so see everyone and we had lots of fun. Hope everyone else had a great weekend as well!