I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned the mnemonic "He's right so she left." This is a guide for which ear the calves get tagged.

Thumper, an adorable white-faced calf born just a couple of days ago, was tagged in the right ear. The sex call of male was made by the student worker who got to name this calf.

Unfortunately for Thumper, for the OSU beef cow farm, and for the PIs of this project, Thumper is a lovely, little bitty heifer. (The supervisors are happy about this; it means that OSU will keep her, and she really is super adorable. Male calves have their testicles banded at 3 or 4 days of age and are eventually sold for meat.)

What a wake-up call. Not a single supervisor thought that we had to double check the sex calls made by the students.

The student misidentified the sex of this calf, and as a result, the calf had a big hole punched in her right ear for no purpose at all, because the beef cow farm manager was rather annoyed once this error was discovered and insisted that the calf be retagged in the other, that is, the correct, ear. 

The instructor of the calving class was horrified. She had no idea that the students were so inexperienced that they couldn't even be trusted to sex calves at birth.

There are plenty of mammals that lack external genitalia at birth. And some species don't express secondary sexual characteristics until puberty. For example, sexing felines at birth is a bit of an arcane art. But cows, like us primates, have external genitalia at birth. Female calves have tiny vulvas and male calves have scrotums. And most mammals of course have umbilical cords. There is a small swelling on the belly of newborn calves where the cord was attached that persists for several days. Despite this, the presence or absence of a scrotum is a nearly fool-proof indicator of sex in a newborn calf.

We think the student thought the umbilical was either a penis or the scrotum. We are not sure how this student could think this since all the calves have a thin, dangly, ragged red tube of slowly atrophying flesh hanging from that umbilical connection. Newborn bulls don't have an external penis. This is one of those things that develop at puberty.

Of course, as a result of this hysterical kerfuffle, I had to take pictures of newborn calf genitalia on my shift at the barn this morning.

Can you guess the sex?

Oh, look! No scrotum. It's a girl!

Can you guess the sex?

Oops! Scrotum! Sorry, it's a boy.

Climbing into pens and splaying open the hind legs of sleepy calves is not for the faint of heart. On one of our attempts to get a good picture of male genitalia, the calf suddenly kicked out. One of its hind hooves make a direct hit on my phone. The phone went flying up into the air, inevitably landing face down deep in cow shit. I cleaned it up, wiping most of it off on my pants, the rest on paper towels, but it still has a very faint odor of cow shit about it. Or maybe that's just me. At this point, I am not being too particular. Fortunately, I live with dogs and they are not at all particular either.

Because of the low light in the barn at night, there is a slight delay from when I push the button and when the shutter flashes open. The camera took a nice photo of the cow shit that it subsequently landed in.

And although this has nothing to do with the theme of this post, I would just note that in a personal best record, I dead-lifted a 94.3-pound calf from the ground to several feet off the ground so we could hitch the sling holding it to the scale and get its birth weight. He is, by several pounds, the largest calf born so far. The calf has to be clipped to the chain high enough so that its feet don't touch the ground so we can get an accurate weight. The student working with me could not himself had weighed over 100 pounds. So I told him, I'll lift, you clip the sling to the chain. It took us two tries to get this calf high enough that his feet weren't dragging on the ground. After we returned Alfalfa to his pen (the name chosen by the student), I said, we will not be weighing any more calves tonight. Weighing that calf nearly did both of us in.

Up To My Knees in Cowshit

We are coming to the end of the second week of calving for the pregnant cow and calf study. It seems like the original estimates of the vet as to due date were off (it's an imprecise art at best, I gather) and the cows are popping out calves left and right a week or more before they were expected. We really scrambled the first week as many of the operational details had not been sorted out.

Newborn calves are like any other newborn mammal: kind of flattened, covered in sticky fluids, and not very pretty. The mother licks her calf dry and they fluff up quickly. Most are on their feet in 15-30 minutes after being born. Amazing.

There is an astonishing number of moving parts involved in this project. First, the 45 pregnant cows, which will eventually become 45 cows and 45 calves (we only keep them at the barn for 48 hours after a calf is born then they are transported back to the OSU beef cow farm). A supervisor has to be at the barn at all times; our shifts range from 4 to 6 hours long. Students in the calving class come for a couple of hours. In theory, their overlapping shifts should cover the entire 24 hours of the day but shifts after midnight are not often taken. I signed up for all but a handful of the 2am to 6am supervisor shifts and for the most part I am at the barn with only one or two students during that time. Sometimes I'm all by myself.

The barn at 3am. All is quiet.

Students in the calving class might have some experience with cows or they might have no experience at all--maybe they saw some cows on TV once. I find it quite interesting that the students with the most experience, those who did 4H, whose families raise beef cattle or have a dairy farm, question everything. They simply can't understand why we would do a particular thing a particular way because "that's not how we do it at home." And that is exactly the point. This is a scientific research study. Of course we don't manage the cows the way a ranch would. Cows have been assigned to specific dietary treatments. Calves have blood draws every 12 hours. Calves are weighed before and after nursing. No rancher who wanted to remain a rancher would manage cows that way. So we get lots of push back from the students with experience. I've tried over and over to explain the objectives of the study and why we have to manage the cows and calves this one way and this way only in order to get data that would meet those objectives, but some of the students simply don't get it.

Stormy was born on my shift. She's the only all white calf so far (we expect one more). It was raining the night she was born. Her name is meant to be ironic. She was not quite ready to stand up when I took this photo less than 15 minutes after she was born.

In contrast, the students with the least experience are often the most willing workers. They dive right in, eager for the experience. They ask questions not to challenge but to learn more. They remain cheerful even in the face of some pretty hectic moments. I've certainly got my favorites among them.

Sleepy calf. Some of the female students are just slips of girls that barely outweigh the calves but you should never underestimate them. Tough, just like the calves.

I've continued to learn too. My successes give me confidence that the vet school decision isn't folly.

For example, I was shown how to draw blood on calves one way. You haul the calf out of the pen. Mother begins to howl, loudly and often. You either carry or crabwalk the calf to the table (calves have "go" buttons on their butts but sometimes they are just so sleepy that they won't walk on their own no matter what). You grab their front feet, another student grabs their hind feet, and you flip "little" calf, who might weigh anywhere from 65 to 85 pounds, onto its side on the ground or a pile of hay if it is convenient. One student lays across the calf's hind quarters, holding hind legs with one hand, front legs with the other. You will hold the calf's head just so, tilting it to the side and up just so. It's quite a piece of theater. 

Holding the calf the old-fashioned way. I told them to lift their heads and smile. Normally they are trying to get out of the way of the person drawing the blood. You can see what a small space you have to work in.

Then I kneel down next to the tiny bit of calf that isn't covered by students, look for the jugular pulse, jam my hand into the base of the calf's neck (and I do mean jam), let the vein fill, then feel for the vein with the other hand to make sure I know where it is located and what its diameter is. I might release the pressure of my jamming hand then put it back to make sure that I'm feeling the jugular vein and not a bit of connective tissue or, dog forbid, the artery. Only the vein will fill when you jab your hand in and relax when you release the pressure. There is a lot of small variability in the physiology so that if you don't pay attention, you are going to miss the vein entirely, nick the vein, or push the needle all the way through it. The latter two will result in a hematoma that can make getting another blood sample from that side of the calf's neck very difficult. If you don't pay attention, you might blow the vacuum on the sample collection tube and have to get a new one. If you don't pay attention, you might have to jab the calf's neck again. And again. And again. Every jab of the needle makes it that much duller so after three or four failed pokes, you need to replace it. For all these reasons, I never insert the needle until I am absolutely sure I know where the vein is and where I want the needle to go into it. My goal is "one and done." Plus, let's be clear, it hurts the calf to be stuck repeatedly with a large, dull needle in the neck. I visualize the vein in my mind and with my fingers. 

The cuvette is a plastic cup with a threaded tip at one end (not shown). They are reused many, many times. You pull the grey cap off the needle and screw the needle into the cuvette. The yellow cap is what I pull off with my mouth. This exposes the needle that we push into the calf's neck. The grey rubber bit is covering a second needle. This is inserted into the vacuum sample collection tube after the main needle is in the vein, or rather, once the needle plus cuvette are in place, you push the vacuum tube up into the cuvette onto the second needle.

Once I am sure, I cannot hesitate. Using my mouth, I quickly uncap the needle that is screwed onto the cuvette, jab the needle into the vein then push the vacuum tube onto the other end of the needle, all with one hand because I can't let go of the pressure on the vein or I won't get enough blood to fill the tube. I am so good at this now that I can get the sample in one jab 9 times out of 10--so satisfying to see that beautiful venous blood shooting into the vacuum tube. Once this is over, you carry or crabwalk the calf back to the pen.

An aside about uncapping the needle with your mouth. That is of course not the "proper" way but it is the "operational reality" way to do it. The calf will only have just so much patience at being squished down on its side--you do not have an infinite amount of time to dither about collecting a blood sample. It is so critical to press on the vein at the base of the neck that once people have a good inflation of the vein, they usually don't move that jamming hand until they are done. So how else are you going to get the cap off that needle but with your mouth? The needles are sterile as long as they are capped but we often put extra tubes and needles in our pockets or on the ground next to us so the exteriors of the things are far from clean. Animal science is not for the squeamish, that's for sure.

But there is a a much better way to get blood from a calf that I learned about yesterday. It only takes two people, not three, and it is less stressful on the mother and calf, less stressful on the calf holders, and much less stressful on us novice vampires. It's still theater but it is more like a short vignette instead of a three-act play.

You and I go into the pen. The calf will most likely be sleeping. Even if it is walking around, this will still work. You will straddle the calf around its shoulders, kneeling on the ground if it is lying down, standing and squeezing it in your knees if it is standing. There is a near 100% probability that you will have to kneel in a fresh pile of cowshit. Then you take its head and pull it straight back against you, exposing its throat. The whiff of ritual sacrifice is strong, that's for sure. I will then kneel down (also into a fresh pile of shit), gently press my thumb into the jugular just above the scapula, and repeat the other steps above. In this position, the jugular is much more obvious, it fills with much less pressure against the neck, and it is much less likely to roll between connective tissue when you push the needle into it.

Two of my favorite student workers. James in fact encouraged me to try the "kneeling" method for drawing blood after he helped another supervisor do it in a pen the day before. Knowledge transfer in its most perfect form. Remember, these two young people are with me in a cow barn at 4 in the morning. Dedication.

This method takes tens of seconds while the other method can take up to 15 minutes per calf. And with this method, we are still in the pen with the mother. Usually mother cow will sniff at us and her calf but otherwise she is not too stressed (these cows are kept at OSU for research; they are not wild range cows). The angle of insertion of the needle is a bit different with this method so today I had to jab the calf twice before I hit the vein properly. 

A final comment on that squeamish thing. I have no problems with all sorts of unspeakably sticky fluids and viscosities of shit. I have no problems jabbing large needles into the jugular veins of animals. But there is one thing that I have so far refused to do: tag the newborn calves in the ear. I understand why they must be tagged, they will live their entire life with that identification number. But the tagging gun looks like some medieval instrument of torture and I just cannot make myself use it. Instead, I turn it into a learning moment for my student helpers. We are all learning, after all.

Those tags will be in their ears for years before they have to be replaced.

Midwifing With the Cows

So the cows are now having their babies. It takes a lot more than a village, more like a small town, to manage a project this large. There has to be at least 2-3 people at the barn 24/7 now. One of those people has to be a supervisor. He/she tells the student volunteers what to do and hopefully they will do most of the grunt work. But many of the students have little experience so the supervisors need to get pretty involved.

It's not quite correct to call the students volunteers. They are taking the winter term "calving class" which is purposefully offered when there are research experiments involving pregnant cows. 

And the supervisors are only distinguished by our status as graduate students, vets students, or faculty involved in the study. We might not have any more experience than the students!

At the start of this week, there was a final head count of 45 pregnant cows, five cows per pen, three pens per dietary treatment. While the whole herd was artificially inseminated within a few days, their due dates are spread out from the last week of January to the first week of March.

The supervisors have long shifts, four to six hours, in order to keep some continuity of information flow, while the students have 1- or 2-hour shifts. It was pretty clear that the PI was going to have a very difficult time filling the supervisor shifts in the dead of night (in theory, the students can be compelled to sign up for those slots by their instructor). So I agreed to take the 2am to 6am supervisor shift. 

I left quite a few slots at that time open for others to sign up, but not surprisingly, almost nobody took me up on it. Out of the five to six weeks we need to be at the barn, I'll only get a break half a dozen times.

Most days, it won't be a problem. But on MWF, I have a class at 8:30. It's a bit rushed for me to get home, feed CircusK9, shower, and get to campus for class if I am delayed at the barn after 6am.

It's wintertime here at latitude 44.5 degrees north. Dark, cold, often foggy, and very quiet. My thinking was, the cows are going to be ruminating and resting at 2am, so nothing will happen during my shift. Think of all the studying I can get done!

Well. Two shifts into it, and I don't think that was the best rationalization for taking this shift. Things have so far not quite worked out as I had planned.

Thursday morning. I had been alone from 2am to 5am (no students had signed up for those hours) and cranked out a pile of assignments. I was checking on the cows every 3o minutes. Two students showed up at 5am so I turned the cow checking over to them. All was quiet in the pens. At 6am, I packed up my books and computer and was heading to the car to go home, to feed the dogs, shower, get warm. We have a room in the barn with a heater, tables, even a crappy old couch, and there are bathrooms, but still, it's a barn. I pack two bags: one is my backpack with school stuff, the other is a bag with essentials to survive at the barn for four hours in the dead of night: blanket, warm hat, slippers (can't wear shit-covered boots into our war room), flask of hot, sweet tea, and of course the power supply for my laptop. After you read what happened during my first two shifts, I have added to that list surgical scissors, knife, and extra work gloves. I no longer even consider leather gloves. Only cheap cotton so they can be washed or discarded as needed.

As I was leaving, one of the students stopped me and said, I think you need to come look at this cow in pen 10. I think her water bag is coming out. So I went to look. Sure enough, she was in the first stages of labor. We got her into the pen designated for birthing, then we started calling and texting people for assistance. Turns out, nobody was assigned for the next supervisor shift! I couldn't leave until someone else showed up!

In about an hour, the PI and then the calving class instructor showed up. But I was a bit dismayed to learn that neither of them could stay! The cow completed labor in a couple of hours. Once we collected data and samples from the calf, I ran home to feed the dogs then returned to the barn. The PI and the instructor left. It was just me and a handful of students from the calving class for the next few hours. 

Yes, hours. I wasn't able to get another supervisor to the barn until 11am. I had been at the barn for 9 hours with only that short break to feed the dogs. 

Not an auspicious first day.  

I headed to the barn again this morning. The shift before me (10pm to 2am) had a supervisor and he asked me to help them get the calf weighed--they didn't know how to get it away from the mother! Once that task was done, I settled in to work on some French homework. There were two students there, but they left at 330am. No other students had signed up until 5am. So I was on my own again. 

And sure enough, when I made my 415am check, I found another cow who was dropping her water sac. I got her into the birthing pen on my own--not easy but not hard if you take your time and plan it all out in advance. She had to be separated from the other cows in her pen, moved into a back passage that stretches the length of the barn, moved along that to the birthing pen, and then into the birthing pen, already occupied by the other mom and her calf. Then I spread out about 40 pounds of grass hay to give mom a good, clean footing for labor and baby bonding.

Of course I texted the relevant people but who the hell is watching for texts at 4am? After the fact, some people are a bit surprised that I managed it on my own (not because I'm incompetent but because, by their own admission, they would not have even tried). Like I said, a little common sense, a little patience, and keeping my eyes open seemed to do the trick.

The next student showed up at 5am as scheduled. I was doing some random hay fluffing in front of other pens when she said, I see the feet! And sure enough, one hour to the minute after that cow dropped her water sac, an enormous male calf was on the ground next to her. Mom is black with a white face. Calf is black with a white face but he has these enormous black rings around his eyes, like a panda or a raccoon. (When she was cleaning him, I slipped into the pen and lifted a hind leg--yep, that's a scrotum!)

One of the incentives that the instructor gives to the students to get them to sign up for shifts is that they get to name the calves that are born during their shifts when they help identify that the mother is in labor and assist with preparations and sample collection. The calves of course get an ear tag right away so have an official ID but she said the students could give them names. No students were around when she went into labor so I claimed this one for myself. I named him Rocky.

Meet calf 5021 aka Rocky. He's adorable. Of course he didn't look like this when he came out of mom. He was covered in slime and blood and not too photogenic. I came back after my classes were finished for the day to get this picture. Males get tagged in the right ear, females in the left. The mnemonic is "He was right so she left." I'll let the reader ponder the meaning of that.

Rocky with mom. The little pink thing on his belly is his umbilical cord. We dip it in iodine when we get his birth weight. Sorry for the glare. Of course it was our first clear sunny day in weeks. The barn has a roof and rooms along one side. The other three sides are completely open.

Mom is super protective and as soon as I stuck the camera into the pen, she was right up in my face. Extracting him from the pen for blood samples and weights is a challenge. At least one person has to body pressure mom away from the calf, another has to lift the calf over the front barrier, and a third has to receive him on the outside of the pen.

Once we had some extra hands  (another student and the supervisor for the 6am-noon shift), we got him weighed. A whopping 85 pounds! He's a big boy! And I fully expect him to have gained weight when I go for my next shift.

The 10pm to 2am supervisor texted me and said, well, you've been the midwife to both of the calves born so far! That's true, of course, but it shatters my theory that my supervisor shifts are going to be quiet.

I texted the calving class instructor and suggested that the 2am to 6am shift may not be looking so bad now. A subtle hint that I wanted her to "encourage" students to fill those dead of night slots. All went well this morning but I don't want to depend on luck.

Dyna

I write this with a heavy heart. My mother and her husband had to let Dyna go last week. It was horribly unexpected and all the more of a shock for that. Dyna had just reached her 16th birthday (born in mid-January 1999). 

Taken in spring, 2002.

I got Dyna when she was about a year and a half old. Like all beloved pets, she has an origin myth. Dyna came to me as an AKC-registered, pure bred smooth fox terrier. Her owners had been quite successful with the breed a couple of decades before but they were elderly. Dyna was from their last litter. When the owners died, all of their remaining dogs were dumped into the rescue network in Pennsylvania. I agreed to take Dyna and she was duly put on a plane to Utah. I really had no idea what to expect when I arrived to pick her up. What I found was a tiny little white bitch with a black head, faint black ticking on her legs, and an amazingly calm demeanor.

Taken just days after Dyna joined CircusK9.

Harry and Iz and Dyna immediately formed a unit. Most of my pictures of Dyna are of all three of them. They were close in age, with Harry and Dyna separated by about six months, and Dyna and Iz separated by about 5 months, and similar in temperament.

Harry, Dyna, and Iz sunning themselves.

Except that Dyna never displayed the extreme nuttiness that is fairly typical of the breed. Don't mistake that for an absence of enthusiasm for life. But Dyna was never very impressed with flyball or agility or even basic obedience. She much preferred to follow Iz around. Whatever Iz was doing, Dyna was not far behind. This quickly earned her the nickname "Mini-Me." I used to joke that an invisible elastic string connected Iz's butt to Dyna's nose. 


Harry, Iz, and Dyna had many adventures together. They were a blur of motion and energy and fox terrier love of life.

Iz, Harry, and Dyna in Teasdale, Utah, December 2002.

I became quite involved in animal-assisted therapy activities with the Delta Society/Intermountain Therapy Dogs located in Salt Lake City. I quickly learned that because of her calmness, Dyna was a perfect visitor for frail seniors. For two years, we made weekly visits to a hospice. Not all the clients there were seniors, but as they were approaching the ends of their lives, they were all frail, frightened, angry, confused, resigned, tired, in pain. This was the most emotionally exhausting animal volunteer work I have ever participated in. I cried every single week on my drive back home. The nurses told me that often Dyna and I were the only visitors some of the clients had received in weeks. Dyna was solid, calm, accepting of any and all touches and caresses, and charmed her way into the hearts of nearly everyone we approached. 

One of my favorite anecdotes from that period concerns a woman who initially refused a visit from us. Because Dyna was very small even for a female smooth fox terrier, I would pick her up and stand in the doorway to ask if the client wanted to spend some time with us. A bed-bound woman took one look at Dyna and emphatically refused. I don't like dogs! she said. But she kept on talking so I kept standing there holding Dyna. Then I edged into the room. Then I sat by the bed. Then I placed Dyna on the bed next to the woman. The entire time, she was telling me stories about the brown dog she had as a child, about the adventures she and her siblings had with that dog, about other dogs she had as an adult. Once Dyna was settled in next to her, the woman began caressing Dyna on the chest (that's the magic spot for smooth fox terriers). Dyna fell asleep and I had to prop her up with my knees to keep her from oozing off the side of the bed. That woman was the only client we visited that week. The next week, she was gone. 

I submitted Dyna's story for an AKC award for therapy dogs. We got beat by a three-legged poodle (seriously), but Dyna got a very nice medal for her honorable mention. 

This is the photo that I submitted to AKC with her story.

It tore a huge hole in my heart to leave Dyna behind when I went to Saudi Arabia. I could only take two dogs and I chose Harry and Mimi. Sophie's choice. But I found the best home for Dyna that I could. She went to live with my mother and her husband in Virginia. They had (still have) two large rescue dogs. I also convinced them to take one of my cats, the Siamese-mix Bhumi, because I thought he would be a good companion for their elderly male cat. My instincts were good on both counts. Dyna and Bhumi both settled in quickly, Dyna of course taking charge of the other dogs from the start. She had never been in charge much at my place since I had no lack of strong, bossy female terriers. Dyna had always been quite content to follow. But once she was the only female terrier around, she certainly rose to the challenge.

Harry, Dyna, Iz in Salt Lake City. Looking for trouble, of course.

The first time I visited my mother after I'd been in KSA for a while, Dyna greeted me enthusiastically and slept with me while I was there. But with time, even though she always met my arrivals with happy greetings, it was clear that she had found a new home. Dyna ended up spending five and a half years in Virginia.

I was able to visit my mother in December for the first time since I had returned from KSA. When I left, I knew in my heart that it might be the last time I would see Dyna. 

My mother says the house is empty without her. That's the thing with fox terriers, they manage to fill an entire room with their buzz of energy.

Dyna was not an agility dog like Iz or a flyball superhero like Harry. She was simply Dyna, little sweet pea, who lived an exciting and eventful life full of dog and cat friends and people who loved her. We should all be as loved as Dyna.

Dyna and other smooth foxes she was related to had this unusual habit of dropping their lower lip when they were relaxed. It was quite characteristic. Taken in 2009 as I was preparing to leave for KSA. Dyna's ticking got much heavier as she got older.

Rest in peace, Dyna bug.

Sprucehill Bedazzle

Rest in peace, my sweet pea Dyna.

January 1999 to January 2015.

Mimi Is Not The Spring Chicken She Once Was

I mentioned in an earlier post that Mimi and Azza regularly play like crazed beasts. I finally managed to get some of it on video.

When I got home from school today, she greeted me at the door as usual, but instead of the normal smooth fox terrier boinging, she was limping, holding her head twisted to the side, ears back, tail down. I called the vet right away. 

It seems that as a result of throwing herself into the game with such abandon, Mimi has torn the equivalent of her rotator cuff in her right shoulder.  

I should mention that this probably happened a day or two ago; Mimi was showing signs of some discomfort in her right shoulder last night. And Azza is crated during the day.

But she should be feeling better shortly. She's got painkillers and muscle relaxers in her now and a belly full of yummy dinner. My homework is done and I'm ready to sit down with a glass of whiskey and relax from my crazy day. Yes, cows were involved. More on that later. Right now, it's time to hang out with my stubborn little terrier.

Showing Up: More Learning Opportunities With the Dairy Cows

The dairy cow selenium experiment continues to provide me with amazing opportunities to learn.

I went to the barn this morning for the regularly scheduled hay fluffing. I took some time to sweep up the main aisle (the evening feeders have been a bit lax in the housekeeping department). Before I left, I decided to make a nose-by-nose check on the cows. 

Everything looked fine until I got to pen 10. One cow was laying down and a yellowish-pinkish mass was lumped under her tail. Pregnant cow, that can't be anything good, I thought. Then I realized that she had not come to the front of the pen when I fluffed up the hay. All of the cows RUN to grab the delicious leftover bits of alfalfa hay that I sweep up with the grass hay. But not this one. 

I shooed her up and saw a meter-long piece of yellowish tissue, well vascularized, covered with large blood clots, hanging from her vulva. I suspected placenta, but I'm not even remotely close to being an expert.

I called the project PI, described the situation. She came right over to see for herself, said, yep, that's placenta and it looks like we are dealing with an abortion, then called half a dozen people. (If it was a person, it would have been called a miscarriage. But in cows, it is called an abortion.) But it was Saturday morning, the last weekend before classes start for the winter term, and, well, it was Saturday morning. We decided that we could do nothing and that the best option was to wait and see who returned her calls. 

I went home to shower. Just as I was finishing up, she called to tell me that the emergency theriogenology team from the vet school would be at the barn in half an hour. I said, I will help in whatever way I can. 

I put my barn clothes back on and zoomed back to campus. A few minutes after I arrived, a vet and a 4th year vet student arrived in a truck with a modified bed that contained enormous pull-out drawers filled with all of the drugs and equipment that might be needed for an emergency ruminant birthing situation. The PI showed up right after they arrived. 

The next two hours are sort of a blur. I fetched several pails of hot water for them ("I don't know nothin' about birthin' babies") and followed the PI around while she did some hand-wringing and the vet was figuring out what the plan needed to be. But I was rewarded for my patience, rewarded for simply being there when the vet asked me to come into the pen and grab one of the chains and help the 4th-year student pull. 

The first calf (there were two) had a condition called water belly. This means that fluid or possibly urine was accumulating in the body cavity, greatly extending the belly. The second calf was significantly undersized. Both calves were a month premature and stillborn. 

No, I did not stick my arm up inside that cow. But I was about as close to the action as any 3rd or 4th year vet student could be. 

Yes, there are photos. No, I will not post them. Go look on google if you are that prurient.

Yes, there were odors and sounds and lots and lots of different fluids of varying color and viscosity involved. I ended up throwing the leather gloves I was wearing into the trash bin in the barn. No, I was not grossed out. I was far more interested in the process. Once I was in the pen and up to my ankles in the brown goo comprised of cow poop and urine and cedar shaving litter (yay for muck boots) and holding onto one of the two chains, I didn't notice anything but the process. Pull, relax, vet repositions the calf, pull, relax. The vet student and I were side by side in the muck, holding the sticky handles at the ends of the chains, probably both hoping we wouldn't fall on our ass when the calf came out at last.

When it was all over and they untied the cow from her head harness, she went over to the two calves, laid out side by side in the muck, and licked at them and nudged them. That was very sad. She became distressed when we removed them from the pen, mooing and trying to get to them. Sad.

It might seem medieval to talk about chains and dead calves in the mud, but every brutal component was balanced by another action that was intended to preserve the health and welfare of the cow. She was not mistreated or abused. She was tended to within just a couple of hours after she began to abort the calves. She would have died if the vet had not been there to deal with the first calf with the fluid in its abdomen. The vet and the vet student used ample amounts of betadine, liters of it, actually. It was harsh but not unnecessarily so. 

More money is spent on dairy cow reproduction than on any other aspect of any other domesticated animal. Fewer than 50% of fertilized eggs from dairy cows produce viable fetuses. The reason is that we genetically selected for cows that produce a lot of milk. But in the process, we unknowingly selected against the genes associated with reproductive fitness. Oops.

So I learned today that I can handle a fairly extreme and unexpected situation with some calmness. I learned that I may project some aspect of that calmness--I don't think the vet would have invited me into that pen otherwise. I got a first-hand view of large-animal veterinary medicine that I simply would never have been able to get before. Every one of these opportunities helps me figure out what I want to get out of this crazy plan to get a DVM. 

And all I had to do was show up.