The Trials and Tribulations of Winston Churchill
By Margaret Rawlings
Our heifers were due to start calving from mid January onwards, so I was quite surprised to see a Murray Grey X heifer bagged up and dilated when we took some visitors up to the paddock on the 28th of December. I came back to the house and checked my records, she was not due to calve until the 28th February, because she was put with the bull in the second group and could not possibly be due more than a week before that date. We decided to leave her where she was and monitor her twice daily, that afternoon there was no change but the next morning around 7am, she was on her own, tail out and definitely in labour. We quickly moved the mob to the yards some 1/2 a km away, drafted her and the other heifers out and waited.
We had only moved the cattle into the new paddock on Boxing Day and put out a round bale of hay in the round bale feeder, thinking they would be all right. It soon became obvious that this particular heifer had taken a severe bunt in the belly while trying to get a feed. She was getting more and more distressed and we were getting more and more worried, how could she possibly calve 61 days early and produce a live calf. We were just bitterly disappointed and resigned ourselves to the fact that the calf would be dead and we just had to ensure the heifer was OK. At 11.30 am on the Saturday morning she finally gave birth to a very tiny Grade 2 bull calf, and to our amazement he was alive, just breathing. She seemed very confused and so Mark rubbed him with a towel to help stimulate the breathing, before letting her lick him clean. He was so tiny how could he ever make it? Weighing just 8 kilo’s and measuring 14 inches from shoulder to tail, with very little muscle tone, what were we going to do with him? First to check if he had sucking reflex, and that was really strong, milk the mother out and feed him the colostrum. She was a commercial female who had never been handled much in her life, she had just given birth and we wanted to milk her! After some anxious moments we were able to get just over 1/2 a litre of fluid from her and he drank 250ml straight down, where there is life there is hope! I still expected him to give up and be dead every time I went to check him, as he just lay there unable to get up, floppy like a rag doll and quite dependant on us to take care of him.
We decided to leave him with his mum in the yards in a box so that she would not reject him, the first night was one where that easterly wind freezes right to the bone, and we got up every few hours to give him a bottle, only 100 ml at a time but he was still drinking. In the morning it was so cold that we had to bring him into the house and put a hot water bottle in with him to warm him and try to regulate his body temperature. During the day it got so hot that he had to sit in the air-conditioning or he would have dehydrated. We had to milk his mum morning and night to give us the milk to be able to feed him, so long as we took him to the yards so that she could see him, sniff him and lick him, she allowed us to continue this procedure day in and day out.
On Monday morning I rang Murdoch University to find out his chances of survival and what I should be looking for as our Vet had no experience with a calf so prem. I also needed to find out if there would be any developmental problems which would have made it not viable to continue. I was given only a 5% chance of saving him and the vet thought due to his size it may be even less than that, developmentally though he was quite well formed with only muscle tone and nervous development lacking in those last weeks. I told the Vet he was a fighter and come what may I was going to save him, or at least give it a bloody good go!
Unfortunately his condition deteriorated over the next 12 hours when he just lost his sucking reflex, we resorted to syringing milk down his throat 25 ml at a time, every hour. His mum was also the worse for wear with retained membranes, common in cows that deliver premature calves, she had to have antibiotics and oxytocin to help expel the after birth. In addition to the drugs I also gave her mashes made with Raspberry Leaf tea for a few days until she delivered the membranes. On News Year’s morning, at around 4am, I really thought he would no longer be able to keep breathing, his lungs sounded very raspy and he was listless and had a funny odour about him. I thought it would be the last time I would see him alive, I even made Mark get up at 6am to see if he was dead, but to my amazement he continued to soldier on, that afternoon he stood up for the first time and took several steps in our lounge room, tears of sadness and joy in the one day. I feel that the antibiotics that we were giving his mum certainly got him over any respiratory tract infection with which he might have been coming down.
From day 5 we started leaving him in the yards to bond with his mum, an hour at a time and then a few hours in the cool of the morning, he still had to come into the house during the day because the outside temperature was so high. We decided to build a calf shed in the yards to house him overnight and so be able to leave him with his mum more and more. On day 7 another setback the calf appeared to have fits. While he was having these fits he was listless and unresponsive, when he was awake he was quite bright and alert walking around normally. By day 9 the fits seemed to be increasing, he was not drinking properly and I decided to ring a lady by the name of Pat Coleby* in Melbourne, who specialises in natural animal care to see if she could offer any advice. She was firstly amazed that he had survived this long and suggested we give him injections of VAM, B12 and Vit C over the next few days to help build his immune system and give him a kick start. She also suggested giving him natural yoghurt to help with the scours which had developed over the last 24 hours. I was able to order these vitamins and VAM through our Farm Shop in Northam who had them couriered and they arrived by 8.30am the next morning. I then took him to work for Mark to inject him, as he is much more practiced at needling than me. I am positive without her help this calf would not be alive today.
The difference in the calf after being given these vitamin and mineral injection was incredible. His response was almost instant, and within 15 minutes he was back bright eyed and moving around. We continued administering the injections for the next few days, along with the yoghurt by mouth and since then, he has not looked back. We are still giving him vitamins and VAM weekly until he is over the danger period, which is considered to be six weeks.
During the month of January we have had two full term calves born and this little bloke looks so tiny compared to them. He can still walk under his mum’s belly and only just comes up to our knees. We have another cow due the same day he was supposed to be born, and she has produced a bull calf, which to our surprise is smaller than Winston. I now feel I can breathe a sigh of relief and think that he has actually made it!
He feeds off his mum morning and night, sleeping with her at night in the freshly constructed calf shed. We have had tears of joy this week as he actually ran around the yards tail up, full bore. He has defied the odds, a true fighter, hence his name Winston Churchill. I will keep everyone updated as to his progress.
We have added the following things to add to the cattle first aid kit, VAM (a mix of vitamins, aminos and minerals around $20 from BioJohn), Vitamin B12 and C ($8.90 per 100 ml bottle), also available in powder for those who don’t like giving injections, a good supply of syringes and sharps (available from any pharmacy or stock feeders), a baby bottle and teat, you never know when you might need it.
We have learnt heaps over the past weeks, got another structure added to the yards and most of all saved a little bloke, who if left in the paddock would surely have died. We also acquired a nice little house cow who is broken to hand milking, we are taking a litre of milk a day for our efforts, but most of her milk is going to our little fella, who is growing at an alarming rate. Mark is making plans to build a cart, so he can be useful around the place, we don’t think we could bear to have him slaughtered after all the work, love and effort that have gone into getting him this far. Who said I’m tough as nails! A true softie at heart.
Miracles really do happen, never give up, source all avenues of treatment but there is no substitute for the specialist care we can give a sick animal.
* Pat Coleby has a new book due out the end of February and I already have it on order, I promise a book review for the next issue of the Newsletter. Pat also writes regularly for Grass Roots magazine.