A Life or Death Cow Emergency

the following video contains subject matter and footage that some viewers may find disturbing viewer discretion is advised hey guys good morning my name is mike this is our wyoming life and we've got a little bit of a situation happening out here on the ranch um so last year we kept back like five heifers and we actually didn't breed those heifers we wanted they were small we wanted them to wait an extra you know year or so before we bred them unfortunately one of them when we preg checked turned up bread so we knew that we had one of those heifers that was pregnant and today it looks like she's in labor so that's her right there you can see the way she's holding her tail her bag is pretty full my first plan for today's video crooked first plan for today's video was actually to take you through calving i wanted to talk about what was happening inside the cow's body and all that kind of good stuff and uh yeah we have a slight change of plans as we come into this emergency so i've got to try to get this four-wheeler started our plan is to get her moved inside and it is minus 13 degrees outside right now so we want to get her moved inside where it's a little bit warmer and we're able to help her out if she needs help this is a first time mom so who knows how she's going to do and i don't know how long she's been in labor i found her this morning when i went out to feed i really wasn't expecting any calves or cows uh to be in labor and any calves to arrive today so we are going to go get her bring her in first i gotta get this dang four-wheeler starter like i said it's really cold so nothing's wanting to work for me right now [Music] we're running out of juice that's not gonna work let's go get the gator and uh we're gonna try moving her with that so technically um technically what i would what i would do actually the perfect situation is i would have that four wheeler inside the shop where it's a little bit warmer um like i said not really really quite ready to start calving yet and i should know better but i do actually you know what we're gonna we're gonna go out there and take a look at her we might be able to move her in um without a four-wheeler we're gonna try and see what happens here so she's right out here the rest of these cows everything and i mean everything is frozen right now so let's see if i can get this gate closed oh come on i need this gate to close there we go we're gonna be bringing her up this way and all i can really say is that i hope that this story um has a happy ending i can't really guarantee anything at this point but we're definitely going to try as hard as we can getting gates set ahead of time hopefully will save us a little bit of time when we do have to move her in here not sure exactly where she went when i found her there she is she was uh inside this lot so i get did close the gates there [Music] so she couldn't leave but the interesting thing about heifers is obviously they've never had a calf before so she doesn't know where she would go anyway this is all new to her so hopefully she's not in a bad mood about the whole thing we're gonna see if we can't get her up in the barn so that's her right there you can see the way she's holding her tail her bag is pretty full she's actually number 14 so she's not a heifer that is an older cow come on girl we need you to go inside that is an older cow and we need a we need something to move her then come on girl come on i thought it was one of our bread heifers it is not she is an older cow that's in labor which means she's definitely early and she's not happy with me out here walking around come on come on all right i'm definitely gonna need a vehicle to move her through here so let's go back and try that four-wheeler one more time [Applause] with her being an older cow now and we can look her up and see exactly how old she is how many calves she's had it's surprising that she didn't go wander off and kind of do her own thing she was right over here when i first noticed her this morning i'm going to take a quick look around just to make sure she didn't slough her calf that's my big concern now is that she was in labor and uh had her calf and it was already dead when she had it but i'm not seeing anything up in the barn that would indicate anything's had a calf on here well there's a big wet spot here that could be pee also it could have been somebody's water broke nothing up here in the barn gives me uh any indication or any worry but i still i want to get her in so we can take a look see what we got going on and see if she needs help having this calf [Music] if i could get that dang four-wheeler to start that would be handy i'm not holding my breath but we'll try it one more time come on all right that ain't working all right we're gonna head and grab the gator i normally don't move cows with the gator especially in this kind of situation just because they equate the gator with food a lot of times but we're really left with no choice here okay gator should start i would hope look at that okay let's go get ourselves a cow here's the thing if we have a calf today it's gonna be at least three months or three weeks three months three weeks early that's not good either but she's definitely in labor she has a bag which is a good sign that means she has milk and milk is a good thing as everybody knows oh gosh a little bit ice there the snow obviously a bit of a pain more you know more than the snow it's the ice everything's frozen down all right let's go find her again coming back through into this uh field where we have her locked in there she is right up there see the tail swinging that's her she's not too happy you see her stance she's got her back legs spread there that's probably more for comfort than anything girly i know you're mad at me come on nope don't go that way so we're trying to get her down for that gate hi you're not helping [Music] come on harley okay this is stupid come on mama nope you're too smart i'm gonna make you really mad here before we even get in the barn come on let's get in the barn let's have our calf in a nice warm barn not out here cows see they all think i have food in the gator so they're all following me around she's following me around well she's not wanting to follow me at all come on girl go get you right down in the trenches here oh there's another cow going in there that might not be a bad thing all together cows back here thinking we got food we got her thinking we're just being mean got bambi up there just watching the whole thing happen come on girl come on girl come on [Music] [Music] [Music] get in there all right we got her in next stop for her is up in the barn she's kind of moving that way already no she's not come on mama nope let's go no no no no no there you go good girl good girl [Music] [Music] okay that's as far as we're going to be able to go with the gator now i want to hold her up in this area so that she can't leave and she's stuck here with us hey no mama hey turn around i don't know if you'll fit through there thanks please i know i lied i said we were done with the gator but we're gonna see we can't get her to go a little farther [Music] if i can get her up in the barn problem is that if i get her up in the barn i'm not sure i can keep her there but we'll try come on girly head into the barn there you go good girl good good good now get in that stall get in that stall no no no i want you to go back in the barn go in the barn hey don't worry about the pace go in the barn getting installed [Music] all right we got her in a stall where we want her hey no no no get back in there turn around all right whatever i think i can maybe close this door a little bit but not much [Music] all right hey mama come on mama no turn around go back the other way okay whatever you want to do hey [Music] hey no dang it all right if i get her to come around this way circle around come on no no no no no no hey stop get no stop breaking my gator stop it [Music] get that stuff all right okay we got our install this is good i'm gonna move the gator out of the way bit my light [Music] hey girl okay all right so we got her in the barn there she is not a happy camper at all peacock what are you doing bud hey hey hey hey hey what are you doing knock that off hey hey now is your is your head stuck in there really there geez louise all right now what we got to do is move her down into here we're going to get her into this head chute um this head catch but to do that we got to get her down into this area which is a little bit of a trick so we're going to open up this gate and see if we can get her to go through come on girly hey door's open come on go through there good girl and we are gonna swap sides with her now she's back in there doesn't have anywhere to go except for back out this way [Music] all right she's got herself here she is she's in no no pain she's a little cranky but she's not in any pain so that's a good thing all right i gotta grab some stuff and i'll be back and we'll take a look at what we have going on on the back side of this cow all right so we already know that we're in trouble um she's definitely early how early not exactly sure actually i should do really quick i'll just hey get back up girl we're going to take a quick look here i just want to see who she is and what she's doing hey get up hey come on get up hey get up stop it stop laying down she keeps on trying to lay down all right let me take a look here i have horrible internet out here in the barn okay i'm gonna search for her though 14 green tag there she is see she's seven years old so she's done this a few times had a few calves we're hoping she can have a lot more after the day [Music] all right all righty lube is our best friend in any situation hey knock it off you're okay come on just want to see what's going on i need my bar i'm going to put this bar in just to protect myself included stop it [Music] stop it i can hey the head of a cat right there okay so there's a calf there ready to come out there you go hey can you push get a hold of the leg maybe there we go we might be able to do this today here's a leg and there's a foot all right so i got a foot that's a really good start all right so we got two feet all right okay we're doing good mama you're doing great [Music] her water's already broke so it's probably a good thing if we can just get this cap out as soon as possible whether it's alive or not that is definitely the question of the hour there's our feet all right girly can you push aaron got me an apple watch for christmas it's right there don't let me forget it all right let's see if we can keep on making happen here those feet are right there so really she's just a couple good pushes away from working on getting this cap out there's our feet big thing is is this cap alive that's a good question i haven't felt anything that would give me any indication that this cap is alive yet i would like to that would make my day come on girl oh my god just a little bit okay come on little one come on you're right there come on i need a big push mom grab some straps here get these on while i can i know i know i can't really this is my first time actually trying using straps i can't say i'm a huge fan so far all right let's just wait a minute give it a minute here kiddo [Music] [Music] [Music] come on baby [Music] all right this isn't progressing as fast as i would like it to so i am actually going to run and grab a ratchet puller mechanical puller to try to make this happen a little faster i'm also going to see if i can get a bunch of lube up in here which i don't know if i'm going to be able to try to move things along okay so this is our mechanical puller i really don't like using this thing for obvious reasons but i do think that we are in a situation where we kind of have to so loop this up and over the cow hook in here [Music] and this is straps as well so i don't know [Music] come on come on i can do it doesn't look like it's alive [Music] so [Music] all right oh crap that cap's way too early steer calf not really a good day just well not a good way to start your day anyway so my guess would be the calf died in utero she was in the process of aborting the calf that's when we found her obviously she wasn't able to get it out by herself and us being able to get it out for her actually does help because if this calf didn't come out obvi it would rot inside her and would kill her as well so this calf never had a chance at all so now the calf is gone nothing we can do about that we move on to treating mom and making sure that she's going to be healthy so number 14 here is a seven-year-old cow um she's got a few calves left in her hopefully obviously she lost her calf today and this season which is you know nine months of an unproductive cow um so but like i said um we want to make sure she's healthy at this point so we're going to come inside the shop and grab some stuff for her while we have her in the shoot we might as well treat her and uh and get her taken care of first thing i'm going to give her is a couple of these giant boluses these are after birth boluses these we administer orally but i have some other ones that go on the other end we're also going to go with some inner uterine boluses um which will help with infection if she has me also okay she's not going to let me put a pill down her mouth she's too agitated for that so we're actually just going to give her some antibiotics in it hopefully help her out a little bit so here i've got some exceed which is a long course antibiotic the uterine bolus is in uh my camera fell down so i didn't get a shot of that um but what we're gonna do now is give her this shot and then yeah talk about what just happened jumping around stop it you're making it there you go okay come along with me we'll open up some gates and get ready to let this go this is the first calf you know i'm gonna put my coat back on a little chilly so on girl watch out in a minute i gotta go open gates and stuff i think it's warmed up a little bit not much [Music] okay so um she didn't quite take her calf all the way to term that calf was extremely thin very little fat on it wasn't quite done cooking if you ask me but i'm not sure what exactly happened that would have caused her to abort that calf and go into premature labor like that um we've had calves that size that have been born alive before so it's not i don't know i mean who knows what it is um like i said when that when it happens you have to switch gears you have to go okay all of a sudden we're not worried about the calf anymore we're now worried about moms just like this one hey girl why are you not happy with me what did i do to you i didn't do anything to you don't be a turd she's not happy with me either nobody's happy with me this morning okay um so what was i saying oh yeah so you switch gears you're worried about the calf you switch gears now you're worried about mom now mom is a part of our breeding herd which means she's not a a steak cow she's not a steer obviously but um we can give her antibiotics without have to worry about the meat at all so that's good and we can take care of her and try to make her as happy as we can let me get this gator out of here so we let her out she doesn't run it over again and making sure that mom is okay is really important for the future whether she stays on the ranch or not that's kind of the question that we're faced with and we say okay is she viable to keep will she lose another calf you know what kind of thing's gonna happen there that's the that's something we have to worry about and we probably won't have the answer to that question until we prank check again and we're able to have a vet uh take a look at her with ultrasound and she'll be able to tell if there's any damage to the uterus or anything like that i think one of the things i mean i always learn when stuff like this happens there's always a learning factor which is why i'm not you know you got to take the best out of out of everything so i'm gonna take i learned something from this and um number one uh being able to act is a big thing you have to be able to to see a problem act on that problem and have faith in what you're doing we're gonna let her out really quick here and i'll finish talking to you go ahead push push come on push and we'll just follow her out here at least part of the way [Music] hey kiddo how you doing [Music] anyway um you learn something you're able to take that knowledge and and use it in the future also because obviously you have to make a decision you have to say okay i'm going to act on this or you can say i'm not which is you know sometimes fine too you can't always wait and see what happens but she's long gone she's out of here [Music] waiting to see isn't always the the best thing in the world either sometimes acting isn't the best thing in the world i can tell you though my first indication that something was wrong once we got that cow in the barn and i was able to get a hold of that calf was well there was a couple of them number one the water bag that that calf is in had already broken so sometime in the night she had started labor and actually what i think we saw um was the very like the end of her labor i mean she's tired she's done she's ready to hang it up so who knows how long she had been pushing the other thing was that the hair on the calf's leg was coming out there's nothing there to hold that hair in anymore there's no however that works there there wasn't anything left so that's the that's uh that's my morning i hope you had a better morning than i did the only thing that i can really think of is you know we've got not that many cows out there that are pregnant after the restructure of the ranch and and and changing how things are done i think there's only 30 some 38 cows out there that are pregnant we lost one about a month ago we lost mom and the calf almost the same exact situation except for we didn't catch that she was in labor at all and we just saw her acting weird i brought her in the calf was decomposing inside her she had infection um and she passed away a couple days later after us we were trying to save her but it didn't work so um you know 38 cows we've lost two already and with the restructuring of how things are going um it's not very good start i guess but it is what it is um we're going to keep moving forward calving is just around the corner i think i'm still going to do that calving video i want to talk about um what we're looking for in calving and uh and how the how calving progresses um all that and how a normal calf is born and uh and one that puts a smile on your face at the very end so while this is not good this is what we would consider a tragedy um it's an emergency that didn't end well um we do try to take something out of it and that's a learning opportunity um that that hopefully we can take something and and and learn from that and uh move forward because that's all we can really do so anyway i was really hoping for a better outcome i really was i was i was hoping that it have a happy ending i hope i was really hoping we were going to have a calf on the ground and that's why i think when we first went out i was really hoping it was that heifer because she could have had her calf right now we we really don't know when she was bred so would have been a better chance of survival if it would have been that happen once i saw it was a cow i knew she was three three at least three weeks early you know thank you though let me pick your nose for you you can take your nose but you can't fit your friends and that right that's today's video it may not be today's video i guess we'll find out i'll go in and talk to aaron and we'll say do we want to put this video out do we want to put this video out do we want to we'll probably end up putting it out youtube won't monetize this video by the way so if you do want to support us support our wyoming life support ranchers that are selling directly to end consumer whatever you want to do you can head to our website our wyominglife.com and check out some beef jerky you can become a patreon supporter and be able to order beef and pork directly from the website also if you're a patreon supporter that only costs one dollar per month so if you can do that that's great if you can't you can at least subscribe mash that button hit the little bell make sure you get notifications so when you know so you know with what's going on around here on the ranch guys i am i'm pretty much done i haven't had breakfast yet it's like noon already so um i'm gonna head in and uh and call it a day thanks for coming along appreciate it we'll see you next time right here on our wyoming life [Music] you

Channel: Our Wyoming Life

Views: 582,608

Keywords: Ranch, cow, cows, horses, cowboy, gardening, farmers market, Wyoming, our Wyoming life, animals, animal videos, peacock, farming, planting, cattle, ranching

Id: KJ_oFQTpwRk

Length: 42min 4sec (2524 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2022