Ups and Downs
Life is about ups and downs. We have to have both. On the farm, we experience both every day.
We had a good lamb crop, but not turkeys. The broiler chickens in June were ginormous, but not so big this time. Luna, one of our milk cows surprised us with a calf, but Hazel, our newest milk cow had hardware disease and is still recovering.
Hardware disease is not a "disease" per se, but a condition where a cow has swallowed some foreign material such as a piece of wire, nail, other metal, or a rough stone. The sharp object penetrates the gut lining and damages some other organ or creates infection within the abdomen. Cattle often eat foreign material with their feed and only occasionally have sharp objects penetrate the stomach.
The condition often goes undetected. However, when the object penetrates the stomach wall, the animal bloats, stops eating suddenly, becomes very dull, and can have trouble breathing. If peritonitis (infection within the abdomen) is severe, the animal may die within a couple of days.
The best prevention for hardware disease in cattle is a magnet put down the animal's throat. The magnet stays in the stomach where it pulls nails or wire out of the stomach wall. The perforation caused by the sharp object in the stomach wall will usually heal and the animal recovers.
A couple of weeks ago, Martin was told that Hazel was off her feed. Checking on her, he saw that she was bloated and that he needed to act quickly to save her. Putting her into a head gate, he took a copper pipe which he had wrapped in tape to be sure the edge was smooth and safe to be inserted down her throat to release the gas that had built up in her stomach. It's not easy wrestling with a 1400 lb cow even when they are sick, but it had to be done and done quickly.
After the gas was released, mineral oil had to be poured down her throat. Hazel was not happy about this invasive treatment.
Cows can't tell you what they are experiencing when they're sick. You have to study them and consider all the options. Looking at Hazel's symptoms, one conclusion was hardware disease. After all, she had recently come from a farm that had all kinds of junk lying around and she could have easily eaten something dangerous.
Back to the headgate she had to go. Not very readily after the last round, but she did cooperate. How do you tell a cow it's for her life?
Martin put a magnet down her throat and gave her a shot of antibiotics to treat the infection. We're cautious about what we give our animals, but this was a life-and-death situation, so she got the antibiotics.
Hazel has been slowly recovering, eating a bit more each day, and only recently starting to chew her cud a little. Hardware disease takes some time to recover from.
The following was a situation we had a few years ago before we had Harriett to guard our sheep, but the truth is still relevant.
Life on the farm isn't always about lovely lettuces and cute kittens. We do have those but there is a reality at the other end of the spectrum, where things are rough and you experience blood, sweat, and tears.
Some readers may find this story disturbing, but it's the reality of life down on the farm. Martin relates his experience:
I've got a more serious tale to tell today. It started when a customer said to me, "I could never be a farmer because I love animals and I could never kill them." She wasn't opposed to eating animals. She just "loved animals too much to kill them herself." She told me that she figured farmers got used to killing animals.
Don't misunderstand, this customer was very polite and didn't mean any offense, and none was taken, but her expression affected me, and the impact of that effect was coincidentally magnified that very evening.
It was about 9:45 PM and getting dark. I heard barking as I headed to the house for bedtime tea but thought nothing of it. As I collapsed on my sofa, I saw my sheep running frantically. Now I knew what was happening. I bolted out the door, grabbing the first weapon I saw which happened to be a corn broom.
Folks often abandon their unwanted dogs in the country because they "love animals too much to kill them." Stray dogs roam the countryside and will ravage livestock, be it cattle, sheep, or poultry, just for the pleasure of the kill.
I got to the scene of the crime in time to see that a large black dog had one of my lambs by the neck. I was face to face with a wild and hungry stray dog who was out for the kill. Beating the predator off with my broom, it fled with a stinging memory.
Meanwhile, Jeannie was busy rounding up the scattered sheep to make sure the flock was okay when she found a wounded lamb lying on its side at the far end of the pasture. It was alive, lying there, and not bleeding too heavily. I thought it might be okay, but it wasn't able to move.
By this time, my neighbor, who heard the commotion, hurried over to see if everything was okay. He helped me carefully carry the victim out of the pasture to the main barn so I could examine it more closely under light.
Searching through its thick wool, I found the wound; it was a small puncture straight to the spinal cord. I knew this was the end for this lamb. Even though it didn't seem to be in too much pain, it was paralyzed on one whole side of the body. There was only one thing left to do and I did it.
You can try and figure out the cost of raising food and getting it to the table, but who pays for tragedies? Who considers that the farmer is in the constant business of both saving and taking life?
Farmers are bound to the light and dark realities. We taste them every day. Sometimes it's sweet and sometimes it's bitter, but we don't grow numb. Responsible farmers don't "just get used to it." We grow callouses but we don't grow calloused. Unfactored into the price you pay for the food we provide is the incalculable cost of dealing with death for you, the consumer.
One can only raise nourished and nourishing animals properly if they love them and take care of their needs. But the end comes eventually, and sometimes prematurely as in this tragic circumstance. The same farmer who loved his animals enough to provide for them must take their lives and give them to you. In the end, it's our lives we're giving you.
Think about it.
