Dueling Flaps: Part I

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What a day. I’ve done more new things today than in the last 12 months combined, including chasing escapees, milking goats, watching a bovine lull through labor and pushing my vegetarian self. Below you’ll get only the stories on the edge of life and death. Details of the other escapades coming soon…

Part I

I really had paid no attention to Nicole until this morning. Everyone else goes on and on about her, waiting for her impending labor. Right before chores this morning, though, I stopped and admired her.

A Jersey cow of mixed light browns and blacks, and just about the sweetest cow face I’ve ever seen. She was already a week late, so everyone’s been bubbling over with anticipation (though a new group of ducklings did steal the show a bit yesterday).

We were well into the morning when we got the call, “I see a hoof!”

My one housemate went running, forgetting to grab the junk t-shirt he’d need to don later. The speed with which this 7-foot man bent down and slipped on his muck boots and dashed out of sight was impressive. The rest of us staggered behind him.

I really didn’t know what to expect. I did grab my camera, though, with you all in mind. I wasn’t sure I’d actually use it, not wanting to experience the birth through a viewfinder of any sorts…besides every other volunteer had theirs. But in I went to the hoop barn, camera in pocket.

I was initially surprised at the lack of space and privacy Nicole seemed to need. She didn’t flinch a bit that a crowd of folks were in her little private birthing barn. Nonchalant entirely, she stood there munching hay and ruminating as though there wasn’t a hoof protruding from her backside.

All eyes on her bum, there were several false starts as poop pushed out instead of a calf. After 20 minutes or so, she got to it, and as hooves emerged, ceded and squished forth again, the livestock manager stepped in to start pulling, gently. Then a nose wiggled out, then eyes blinked through a sheath of mucous.

It occurred to me that the leaping cow silhouette that stands as our logo, may not be leaping at all, but may mimic the natural curve of a calf as it stretches out into our world. Through all this cerebral contemplation, the moment still got me, and I shed a tear, or twenty.

As soon as they had the calf on the ground, another manager checked things out down there and relayed, “It’s a Heifer!” Which was met with muffled cheers and tears. You see, this had been an artificial insemination, and this cow’s last chance to reproduce. And Jersey cows are prized and like the rest of the breeds here, hard to come by.

Part of the organization’s work is to preserve heritage breeds to maintain biodiversity and “dual purpose” animals, that is, animals that have pretty good meat, pretty good milk and pretty good temper. This way a family, or community, and maybe eventually all of us, can benefit from these cattle, or goats, etc. instead of relying on single-purpose animals bred to reproduce rampantly, gain weight quickly or produce volcanic gallons of milk.

Before, during and after the birth, that hoop barn was pin-dropping quiet, even with at least 25 folks from here and 10 drop-in visitors who were getting quite a show.

The only sound I remember was the strong, gusty flapping of the plastic tarps stretched over the barn’s metal skeleton. Sheltered inside, I felt protected and protector as I sat with all of the others, encircling the cow and her new calf, Mabel.

We didn’t get to stick around and see Mabel’s first steps and or first suckling, though it wasn’t for lack for patience. Mabel spent the first 30 minutes of her earthbound life flopping around under the gusto tongue licking of her mother, and unsuccessfully aiming for her momma’s undulating udder.

It was time to get back to the planned activity, the one which my roommate needed a cruddy t-shirt for. And so sounded my second gusty flapping.

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Photos

Farmer's Friend
A tribute to Aimee, who used this for I don't know what - but it was always lying around our freshman dorm room. It was my first inkling of cow husbandry: no thanks.

First Look
Eyes just blinked open through the mucous.

Leaping Cow
Perhaps a logo misunderstood

First Bath
We missed the standing or the suckling, but this was pretty cool to watch.

Which way do I go?
Almost there, but momma kept knocking her down with the licking...

Oh, ma!
Startled Mabel topples over again under Nicole's forceful tongue-bath