#11

No matter if your farm has 1,000 head of cattle or less than a dozen, every loss is felt.

Yesterday morning, we lost calf #11.

This calf has always seemed a bit "off."  He's was smaller than the others and a bit runty.  He wasn't an aggressive eater so we had to be sure he got his share of milk replacement. He had scours but I got him through that.  He finally seemed to be gaining weight in his front half but his back half still seemed pretty scrawny.

I fed him the night before and he seemed okay but when I went in for the morning feeding, he was laying on the ground, flopping around like a fish.  I'd get him standing up and he'd fall back down, roll onto his back and flop around some more.  He was dead within hours.

My daughter was particularly attached to this one and called him Baby because he was the smallest.

Life and death are part of living on a farm. The births are celebrated and the deaths are felt equally as deeply.