Today was a hard sad day at A Rusty Knoll. For the lats 6 weeks we have been holding two of our breeding cows in what we call sickbay. When the vet was out checking the herd we did some blood work on one of the girls Renee’ who was looking off. She was limping, was loosing weight and a concern. Samples taken by the vet showed she had worms so we started worming. We talked with the vet and with our desire to stay as clean as humanly possible we chose to go a non chemical worming rout. Renee’ was given minerals and garlic and was responding well, still skinny but much brighter.
New Years Eve we decided she was worm free and should join the maternity side of the herd. She was open and maybe Dunbar would do his job. Yesterday when we drove in I noticed her laying not too far from the hay ring, didn’t think anything about it and went down to the barn to clean it up and get it ready to sterilize. Fed mineral to the maternity side and took mineral to the steer side. I went out the the hay ring and Renee’ was still in the same spot. I offered her a treat and she would not get up. I tried several more times, she would not stand. I went to the building and my husband came out to look at her. We called the neighbor and he came and tried to help us get her up, no luck. Placed a call to our vet and had an emergency farm call just before dark.
Dr. Clint said she looked good, bright good color, eating, drinking but refusing to get up. Dr. Clint gave her and IV electrolyte and also a paste. With straps in place front and back we hoisted her and tried and tried to get her to stand. She would NOT put weight on her front end. Letting her down to rest Dr. Clint suggested we let her rest. Keep feeding her, he felt it was too early to give up on her. We did as instructed and this morning gave her more food, water and electrolytes. Hoisting her again we tried and tried to get her to bare weight, she had no fight no desire to fight. We made the call and said good by to her. We did a farm kill and she will provide our family with meat because she was not USDA inspected to sell.
My heart is broken but I could not, would not let her suffer. I sat and talked to her, I stroked her neck, over the past several weeks we had become friends. She rested her head on my knee and I knew she was ready to go. I’m thankful she was not breed and grateful for the bounty of food she gave to our family. So long my sweet Renee’…