Emergency C-Section - Trying to Save a Calf

hi I'm Mike it's a rough day on the ranch as we continue our 30 and 30 30 blogs in 30 days and you get a chance to look behind the scenes at an event that never would have made it to the channel if it wasn't for this vlog it's coming up [Music] good morning gang we're back at it once again as we continue our 30 and 30 30 blogs in 30 days and right now we are smack dab in the well I won't say we're in the middle we're actually still in the beginning parts of calving we have let me see 12 calves on the ground last at last count anyway last night we had one of Lincoln's cows actually had a calf last night and we tagged that one with number 13 lucky number 13 last year I actually talked about retiring number 13 and not using it ever again but I kind of decided to go ahead and tag the calf with number 13 just because I didn't feel like being pushed down by superstition even though I can't be a superstitious person but I decided to laugh in the face of superstition this year this year and get that done so we are up to 13 actually 12 because we lost number 6 and speaking of that we are expecting a phone call from the vet either today or tomorrow where we will find out exactly well hopefully we'll find out a reason or you know a reason for death or hopefully something to shed some light on that situation so right now we are heading out to check cows here first thing this morning temperatures in the 20s we're expecting I think something right you're in the mid 30s for temperature today but we do have some snow on the way as well so that could come later on this evening but we will definitely have to prepare for that with any new calves that we are having so we're heading out cows are pretty spread out this morning and we roll out here and the very first thing we started looking for is any cows that look like they might be in the process of having a calf which I don't see any any huge indications of anything having later being in labor right now so we will go through now and as we drive through we're basically we're looking for calves we're looking for anything that's out of the ordinary at this point high eyebrow cow Oh run away run away we haven't been out to feed the cows yet they're all so there would be a little bit more gathered up but that's okay we can deal the cow all hunched over here and I always wonder calf now P and okay nothing like that first pee in the morning okay very little too much information but we get to know each other we spent a lot of time together in this Gator through calving season and that is going to continue as we have our 24 hour calving livestream on coming up on the way and I'm trying to debate I'm debating on how to do this time for breakfast yum yum anyway I'm debating on how to do the 24 hour calving lime stream I my first thought was to incorporate it into the 30 and 30 but honestly if we do that you're going to lose two videos in the 30 and 30 right so we're on number 27 now so we could do 28 and then it would take it would be 29 and 30 or however we wanted that to work and you lose to two videos basically because my thought was I would start it at 7 a.m. let's take a look at these two cows and cows here's more okay I was looking good heads real held up high they're paying attention to what they're doing what we're doing number two hey kiddo so anyway my thought with the with the 24-hour calving livestream was that it would start at 7 a.m. which our time which is when our when the videos are coming out anyway and then it would roll all the way through until 7 a.m. the next day and obviously I wouldn't want to make a video while we're doing that that's so we would basically skip a video so or skip you know a whole blog so anyway I don't want to do that I don't want to screw you guys out of two whole videos dry morning good morning little one good morning number eight how are you gonna fight let's fight remember boom I can't wait until the Cavs get a little bit older because they do start to fight with the Gator when we come out they'll actually you know faceoff with us and we get to have a little a little a little sparring action with some of the calves that's always a lot of fun okay more cabins up and moving I love this as we bork as we get up and go and obviously every time we come out we see calves up and moving here in the morning here's another one over here those moms that were hanging out back there in the windbreaker obviously starting to bring their calves up hey kiddo good morning paint number 12 you're number 12 you're pretty new hi buddy hi hi there number 12 was boring yesterday as well the other wonderful thing about blogging is that you don't get a chill you know there's no second takes right so when that one was born I think it's a little boy when it was born I filmed it I was right there and then I went back home to download the footage and it was all corrupt so that was a big fat no-go but so there's no proof of his birth other than him actually being here on this earth okay more calves here we go this would be faith over here with mom [Music] look at that good morning faith Kath number one and mom if you don't follow us on Instagram or Facebook I'm going to ask you to go and do that last night I got a really cool picture of faith while I was out doing night checks and I've Aaron and I posted that on Facebook and Instagram you can you can check that out I thought it was a cool picture anyway and it's it's kind of a neat place for us to be able to stay you know to post that that instant stuff even though that the log is very almost instantaneous right like we see comments I can answer those in the very next day's vlog which I'm going to do today as we when we finish up with with jacket Cavs I'm going to take a look at some of the comments from the last few videos and try to answer some of those today as I really haven't had a whole lot of time to sit down and answer comments at the old keyboard this is number 13 born last night [Music] hey bud another little boy I'm gonna have to take a look at the at the computer and see where we're sitting at boys to girls ratio but this is one this is Lincoln's first half of the season a little red one so the kids each have their own small hurt over the last well over their first five years of their life the kids lives we gave them a heifer every year so the so they basically have a herd of five and those five cows obviously have calves every year and those calves then when we sell them or whatever we do with them that becomes a portion of Earth you know kids income we put that actually directly into a fund for the kids for college or trade school or or whatever is that they may end up doing in their lives but I think that's a really cool thing to do and it's a basically an instant savings account for the kids and we can you know give them a good start in life so that's something I don't know okay I think the over two actually came up with that idea because when Mackenzie was born Gilbert was still alive and I think he gave her a heifer that year just just to start her own her own little herd so I think that was actually Gilbert's idea and something that we carried on from from him here's a brand new baby out here this will be number 14 come up and take a look now this cow I did see laundering out here last night 121 is our number and this would be her little baby hey kiddo how are you did you make a baby did you make a baby for us did you make a baby for us huh do you want a congratulatory piece of cake you can take it you can have it it's yours oh you don't want it are you stuck up are you too cool now and it's another little boy cool and we might as well take a look at active calves and we will see that we have 13 active calves 10.5 percent of the herd has cabbed at this point and we have one two three four five six seven eight Bulls and one two three four five heifers there was a question that I saw in the comments that asked if it was better to have balls or heifers and we prefer to be him sorry I just spit everywhere that was nice we prefer to have to be a little bit heavier on the on the bowls just because they are going to be a little bit heavier once we castrate at branding we are able to have a little bit heavier herd the more bulls that we have so a few calves here number 10 number 9 and number 11 9 10 11 it's like a little gang look at him go like I said moms are in the process of bringing their calves into the herd they they will tend to keep him separated for a couple days and have a nice bonding experience bonding time for moms with their calves even though throughout these last few storms that we've had they've been they've been hanging out with other cows and bonding with them so it's like we have a little bit more activity down this way I can see three cows that are off hanging off by themselves so we are going to get our tagging gun reloaded here make sure that we're ready next next cow we roll up on may have a baby a new calf for us so anyway back to what I was talking to way back there about the 24 hour livestream Sunday morning will technically be the last video of the 30 and 30 but I thought a really cool way to wrap it up maybe to then kick off there's be 24 hours of cabbing livestream on Monday morning and let that roll all the way through until Tuesday morning then I could take a few days off maybe and catch up on some sleep and then figure out you know then come back with a new schedule and and however we're going to continue this whole thing there's a couple more cabs for us to take a look at here we have number four and number five these these guys hung out back here in the metal windbreak throughout the entire storm so they are obviously friendly with each other buddies even I don't know why but our cows always look at me like I own money so anyway let me know what you think that idea you know coming off the starting the 24 hour livestream on on Monday hey where are you going baby are you coming with me mom get your butt back here and don't go with him he's a bad influence [Music] I'm not really that bad of an influence [Music] 20 years ago I might have been a bad influence [Music] now I just have to keep bad influences around me just to remember what it's like to have fun all right we got one more cow out here that is hanging out and doing her thing my guess would be that if she hasn't had a cap yet she will have won at some point today we're gonna go down take a look at her and see who she is and what she's up to so this is number 142 she has not had a calf yet so I imagine she is uncomfortable and probably wanting a little bit of privacy would be my guess so we're going to leave her alone we'll come back and check on her in a little bit we'll head back down this way back towards the ranch for it back towards the shop and drive by the ponds here make sure that nobody's hiding down here which is always a possibility of salt so one question that came up quite a bit in comments over the last couple days I've seen is people asking why we can when we do and that's kind of the interesting question to to ask and to answer because it really depends on who you talk to and and why they care what they do and obviously anytime you can is going to be difficult you can you there's there's no perfect time to cap I've got a friend of mine up in Montana and they can in February they start calving in February nice like man why do you calves so early isn't it cold and nasty and you're always dealing with you know cows frozen down and all this kind of stuff but the thing is that they farm as well they actually you know I've put up put up weeds and Marley and so they have to be done with calving in order to it'll be in the tractor and start seating and all that kind of good stuff that they have to get done in April so they have to be done so that's more of a timing timing thing so also there is there's the argument that when you have calves in colder temperatures there's less bacteria in the soil there's less chances for infection which is a very valid valid point so we'll see that a lot too so down here in our neck of the woods which is a term I rarely get to use because we don't have any woods we end up we see a lot of people that start calving even in March here and I'm not sure if it's for the same reason or not but we do see them calving earlier it's a vector addition and tight part of it is tradition because here we see a lot of people selling calves in October now that's the busiest time to sell calves here in Northeast Wyoming South Dakota at least sales barns we've been to and we in order to sell calves in October you want your calves to be a certain weight so if you're if you want your calves to be 500 let's say 600 pounds at sale which is you know not not unrealistic you want - timeout you're calving so that your calves grow big enough by the time that you're ready to sell in October the average calf will grow about two I think they save 2.2 I don't know how they come up with that number but I usually just kind of average it out at two pounds per day so if you're looking at a calf that's gonna gain 60 pounds per per month at two pounds per day and you want a 600-pound calf and calves are 75 pounds when they're bored I'm not gonna do the math but I'm roughly gonna say that you want to sell a calf when it's about seven months old if you want to sell them in October at 7 months old you're gonna start calving in March right okay so that makes sense I kind of did a little math there that was fun but so that's that's where that comes in and that's the tradition that they're the modality that we came into when we came to the ranch Gilbert sold in October we needed to start capping we can we actually calves late for this area we wouldn't we've came everybody always told me Oh Gilbert calves late so the other interesting thing is that we do have some farming stuff to do we have - hey so we want to try to be done with calving by the time we're haying at the end of June so there's a there's part of there's part of our farming equation into the whole thing here's another calf over here that I missed when we came through earlier so we're gonna I think I did I think I missed it so we're gonna swing down this way and just take a look it's already tagged so I just want to look at him see oh wait a minute no this is the one we just tagged she just moved it down here there's number 14 at 121 all right so those are the main reasons that that we have when we do obviously but we are running into an interesting situation here where last year we held that we weaned our cows which not many people do around here they'll though they'll load they'll bring in their calves in October load them on the truck at the very next day and off they go last year we weaned our calves off we fed them up a little bit not a lot but basically we wean them off so that we can hold on to them until the market went back up and we could hopefully at least break even on our calves so because we did that we did not have any income or the ranch in 2019 there was no income at all because we simply didn't sell calves however in 2020 we've sold calves in January and you can go back and watch that video that was our very first video of this year so we've already had our paycheck for this year we started the year with our paycheck which was a little different you know banking wise and budget wise but so anyway we've already been paid for this year so we technically unless we want to take a big old hit from from Uncle Sam we do not want to sell our cows this year in October even if the price is good end up paying more in taxes if we sell twice in one year if that makes sense we'd basically be doubling the income of the ranch so we're actually going to end up probably weaning the calves again this year which then does raise the question could we wait put the Bulls in the later this year calves in starting in May let's say next year and that's very doable it's it's very it's a simple process we just don't put the put the but you can always move calves you it's hard to move calving back but you can always move it forward we do have other issues we're going to run into in May obviously the ground is is thawed in May so there's more bacteria in the ground we may have to change how we how we treat newborn calves we may have to changed our grazing patterns I don't know I mean it'll be it'll be a new thing so that's something that aaron and i and her mom are actually gonna sit down and try to figure out what we do for this year for breeding so it might it might so you know some have some new changes coming up here on the ranch so that's our rounds for this morning I'm going to run in the house and get a cup of coffee come back out feed these guys get that done and then we'll get started on our day I do have to package more beef jerky and get that to the post office today but other than that I think we're going to try to get a little bit of work done around here and I think also I'm going to get a chance to show you more of the arrow clip equipment that came that you saw yesterday and kind of what our plan is there I have a 3d drawing of what our new Corral system is going to look like that I forgot to put in the video yesterday so we're going to take a look at that and you know see what other kind of mischief we'd get up to so stick around it's going to be a lot of fun as we continue the 30 and 30 right here on our Wyoming line all righty cows are fed in fact a lot of the moms are actually bringing in their calves back in which is very good so we have lots of cows lots of calves all mixed up in one great big jumble and enjoying their food the snow is starting to fall just a little bit today and we are upstairs in what is actually the livestream studio this is where we do our live streams every Sunday night on the beyond the ranch channel but during the week this all gets crammed in together because this is also where I do my editing Aaron's office is up here my office is I guess you could call it an office is up here we do a lot of photography there's a green screen wall in case we ever do green screen stuff and it's also where we package our beef jerky our beef jerky is for sale on our website it's all raised right here on the ranch processed over in Sturgis South Dakota where we where we have then make our jerky for us so we get orders they come in on this printer over here and we fill every single order here at this table we do it all ourselves we don't have a staff working for us and that's why we appreciate your patience when you do order beef jerky sometimes it does take us a few days to get it out to you so I'm gonna start filling orders for beef jerky Erin and I are then gonna run it to town we're gonna run a few more errands and then we'll be back out to the ranch so enjoy this making jerky montage not making jerky packing jerky montage [Music] the chairs are on the table the floor has been swept closing time and I'm a little tight it's a long time since I'd sleep I'm moving forward I'm ready to move on hit fr a friend no start at the break of dawn here I come you better watch out nothing can stop me I'm out of the corner here I come you better watch out [Music] the roamer is out nothing can stop me [Music] Tamar's getting closer yesterday has come destination nowhere a time I know my own here I come you better watch out you better beware nothing to stop me go on [Music] you better watch out you better beware the result nothing can stop me [Music] Jerky's packed we're off the town and that my friend is exactly what aaron and i did we took the the beef jerky to town got it to the post office and delivered and turned around and pretty much just got right back to the ranch chair and wanted to be back in time to open the farm store when i went back out to check cows that's when I found something that I did not like at all I found a cow who was actually in the pond she was right on the edge of the pond it looked like she had slipped and fallen in the mud and what had happened was when she had fallen her back legs kicked out behind her and that's never good when a cow falls like that especially when they're really pregnant because there are blood vessels there are arteries within the uterus that are that are prone to rupture when a cow Falls like that and that was my big fear was that something like that had happened I did not have a camera with me however and I just really we I had to get something done so what I did was I wouldn't got the the tractor with the forks on it and got her moved out of the pond and up on to dry land where I could hopefully see if she would be able to get up she couldn't get up and that was pretty much it I had to make a decision on what to do by that time I did have a camera back out with me our neighbor Gary happened to be right there and and saw what was going on so he came over to give me a hand and we performed basically an emergency c-section in the field in order to get that calf out what you'll see now is actually what happened during those few hours in in trying to keep trying to save a calf on the ranch all right let me show you what we're dealing with here a lot of times when these cows slip fall on the ice or anything like that their back legs are gonna kick out that bat that can actually cause a rupture in their insides now she is probably filling up with blood and we can take a look at her gums and see how white her gums are which means that she's probably bleeding to death more than likely just got to get their scout [Music] oh yeah we gotta [Music] all right calf is out area air on our way up to the shop here what we're gonna do is get this cat foot in the warmer start drying it off all right for now [Music] $7.00 maybe 200 [Music] [Music] time to figure out what this could be develop in a small town there wasn't enough [Music] I think we're loser [Music] test and um [Music] [Music] not be [Music] I wish I could freeze this moment just never let it [Music] walk into this [Music] used a path [Music] [Applause] I'm gonna take [Music] gradually to head here's a pair [Music] when [Music] [Music] [Music] that's what my mama said [Music] [Music] there's a saying that goes and I'm not even really sure how it goes I've heard it said different ways but that sometimes you eat the bear sometimes the bear eats you you've probably heard different variations of the same thing but I got to tell you just having days go sideways can really kick your ass you know what it's and all it takes is just one one moment and yeah it's all backwards and sideways and something that's totally out of your control - really I mean the vet when I called even said the chance of that calf living is very slim he was right we try that's all we can really do but now we're out here checking cows again the whole thing starts all over we come out we look at all these little calves that are sprinkling the entire ranch there's one right there number seven and we start looking for for new moms [Music] and we scour every square inch oh yeah you've probably heard this saying before where have you heard it said before when ranchers and farmers always say you know next year is my year that's the year and I've heard it hundreds of times from hundreds of different farmers and ranchers that and I think that's what farmers and ranchers live for I think that's pretty much what everybody lives for it's just that farmers and ranchers can literally put a pen to paper and say next year it'll be better we we Forever optimists and I've never met a farmer or a rancher that was a complete pessimist that was successful or that made it work or that live their entire life doing what they love because you can love doing something and be a complete pessimist about it I've met many especially through my translate my travels here on YouTube and emails and comments and and people that tell me they ranch but or farm but they they're complete pessimists about it that nothing can go right nothing ever is going to go my way I don't know I feel like it's the it's the optimists that that will eventually succeed or at least if you don't succeed you get that one win that makes all the difference so it's it's been a crazy day and I and I feel bad for our unloading on you sometimes you know this daily blog thing is good and it's bad at times too because you know honestly if we were filming regular episodes of maybe twice a week you guys probably would have never ever known about what happened today or very few of you would anyway I might have discussed it eventually in a live stream or something like that but it's not something that I would have been proud to show the world because nobody wants to share a defeat nobody ever says hey I've made it all the way the Super Bowl and I lost [Music] Lauren moving on I've got a plan now for for our 24-hour live stream which is coming up rat I what my plan is is actually you're gonna because I want to make it as convenient as I can for people that want to hang out with me for that was 24 hours we are going to begin the 24 hour livestream at 7 a.m. on Friday mountain time so that's what it'll start so we have a video coming out today we have a video tomorrow and then Friday we'll start the live stream that live stream will run all the way until 7 a.m. on Saturday at which time a new video will launch on our channel crazy right because part of hanging out with me for that live stream is we are going to go we're going to make a video we have to make a video for Saturday we have to make number 29 we just have to do it right so we're gonna we're gonna settle in we're going to do that so you'll get a chance to hang out with me not only throughout calving but throughout editing and the whole process of Pi Day as we vlog is going to be shared with you so I really do hope that even any at grilling you don't have to hang out for the whole thing trust me I'm anticipating people coming and going and going and coming in and that's totally fine - I'm down with that that's that's great we can do that and I hope that you do get a chance to pop and eventually say hi I will be streaming from my phone so I'll be able to see comments when they pop up air and I'll probably be watching from from time to time so she'll be able to answer comments we're also going to have friends the channel like math and Dave and nurse Tammy right there along with us from time to time to hopefully be able to answer any questions that I can't get to or at least maybe somehow get my attention I guess you can take a call Aaron and be like hey have Mike answer this question but yeah that's that's our plan for now [Music] I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to get to the arrow quip stuff that I was planning on doing I was hoping to take you guys through the corral system and kind of show you what the plants were with the arrow club system I didn't get a chance to do that but you know things came up we have this we had to deal with it I do appreciate you guys being there with me for that and it's something that's always while I'm blogging it's always in the back of my mind I'm like you know people are going to see what I did and then they're gonna say well you should have done this and you should have done that and you you screwed this up or whatever and then you've been you you know so they're sometimes not showing things it's actually a way of preserving my own sanity whereas with the blog there's not much choice right and Mike if I didn't if I didn't show you what happened this afternoon I wouldn't have much to blog I could have came out we asked my way through this sanding and pretended nothing happened I could have done that but that's not fair to to me or to you so thank you very much for coming along I know this one's probably going to run long but thank you very much be sure to subscribe thanks for joining us in our 30 and 30 we'll hit it again tomorrow and we'll be right into our 24 hour livestream we're not if something happens honestly we cannot hide it there's no way right so whatever happens happens during that 24 hours we will we look forward to doing that hanging out with you throughout that as we wind down on the in the 30th 30 and also our live stream on Sunday night we have some great people that we work with who are gracious enough to donate some prizes and stuff for our wrap party so that celebrate the end of our our 30 days we have some surprises to give away from area from arrow clip from VCS [Music]

Channel: Our Wyoming Life

Views: 299,191

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

Id: a_O8M5S1E-8

Length: 44min 35sec (2675 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 16 2020