This adventure of mine started a few days after St. Patrick's day in '09. I had gone over to another property to check on heifers. When I arrived I counted all of the cows and their calves. As I was combing the edge of the property, I found this small calf on the other side of the fence. I carried this calf and put in on the right side of the fence. Much to my dismay, this baby didn't have a mommy. His mommy passed a couple of days earlier and all of the other cows shunned him. Being a mother and veterinarian, I couldn't leave this baby to fend for itself and hope that another cow would adopt him . . . .
So, I put Sarah Katherine in her car seat and went back to get this calf, who by this time had made it into the woods in the middle of briars. I walked back there, picked him up like I would any large dog and carried him to the truck. As I finally put him over the fence by the truck, I had a screaming child in a car seat, a calf that was exhausted, and me-covered in poop and urine. I didn't have anything to transport him in nor did I have anything to tie him down with, so he rode in the back of my truck like a dog! I can only imagine what people thought as I traveled the 10 miles back to our farm. We named him "Clover" because he had to be lucky to survive this ordeal!
Since he survived the catch and the transport, I was determined to keep this little baby as my own and feed him to one day join the rest of the herd. He took to the bottle wonderfully in the small area that we made him and was so gentle with Sarah Katherine. You can read in a previous post about moving him to a bigger area in "Cattle Drive".
Like a mother watching her child leave the nest, I watched Clover join the rest of the herd. He found this cute little heifer calf and never looked back. I wonder if he is grateful for all that I did for him . . . . probably not!
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