Right story ...wrong cow

This morning I discovered that it was not the funny-colored cow who calved on Tuesday that had milk fever, but one that calved more than a week ago. I was confused yesterday when Garry said that Luba told him it was the same cow who had milk fever on that Thanksgiving Sunday when we had gone to Victor's church- since I thought that was a Holstein-looking cow. Of course Garry had told me both cows' names in the last couple days- but except for Zera - Zerichka, and Rita, most of them start with and M and are some version of Mart (March) because that's when they were born.

So this morning she had stood up for an hour or so in the aisle, then had laid back down by 10:30 when I took this picture- the other fresh cow is standing in the stall in the background. The vet was supposed to come out around two to look at her again, but he actually arrived before noon. Paying cash makes for faster service, I guess. Garry had snuck some more calcium in her this morning, so she stood up when the vet arrived- so he said -see I fixed her yesterday! The good news is she's back in her stall standing and eating.








Garry and Max finished off the cement around 10 am- check out the heavy duty form construction (yesterday they used one side piece as the ramp to unload the heifers from that huge truck)and the bracing. They plan to make the walls higher on three sides yet. Then they worked on moving the haypile so they could section off a third heifer pen- for the three smaller ones that came yesterday, along with the two ones from the village- Garry dehorned those two when they came, he's going to do the the other three so they have equality- the red ones are having trouble getting much to eat with everyone else bigger than them and having horns to stab them to chase them out. He would cut the horns off the bigger heifers, but the dehorners aren't big enough. So everyone should be happy, and grow big and strong.

Cows are very social animals- like people they like to have someone to push around, and they have a social hierarchy with a top cow. Sometimes it is surprising who is boss cow- we once had a cow who was the shortest cow in our barn- Kiwi (she was a preemie and never grew well) until she was ten she thought she was the biggest, baddest cow in the barn, and all the other cows agreed or she'd knock them down a notch (fortunately for her she was heavy for her size- a really good milker too.)
Here is the sick cow at 6 pm- looking pretty good, back in her stall eating, it may take a few days for her to get back to normal.