The Babies and the Boobies

Alpaca hug

We have had almost every conceivable birth difficulty and defect here this year. Waiting and watching for babies is pretty constant for much of spring, summer and autumn.

Firefly was born to Tinkerbell in mid winter. He was all wonky from the first and only after all day of waiting for him to stand up did we realise something was very amiss and whisk them both into the house paddock. We didn’t know if he would make it, did a lot of googling and realised he was ‘windswept’, his legs might straighten or not. But first we had to milk Tinkerbell for the colostrum and try and get that boy on the booby. We soon gave up and brought him into the house by the fire and gave him two hourly feeds. We even had to take him to town with us and leaving him with friends for a few hours each while we went shopping. We got some very strange looks unloading him from the back of the car at the beach for a quick bottle stop! We took him to the vet who splinted the legs and after quite a lot of fiddling to get them right we trained those legs to stand straight and he is an absolute delight. Our kissing and cuddling cria to this day.

We had our first twin lambs but one was weaker and couldn’t get on the booby. I had my first experience of milking a ewe to get some colostrum for him and try and tempt him on to the teat. I guess we should have just taken him away and bottle fed him and we will know for next time, but we lost him, he walked away from his mum in the night and got out of the pen and was dead in the morning. Always a heartache, what a waste.

Then there was Bambi, just came home one day and there she was. Gorgeous doe eyed suri out of Caroline. After doing twice and thrice daily drive bys for weeks, Artimesia birthed when no one was watching and obviously had problems. Because we found her and the baby not long dead, who had obviously died in the birthing process. Wendy we found with a dead baby stuck half in and half out and I discovered the infinite joys of KY jelly and gloves (as opposed to bare hands) when inside and pulling. Poor Wendy. Though she seems much happier to be free of Motherhood and with Peter Pan finally off the boob.

Sapphire birthed little black Lucky on the day we rolled the car and it was wonderful to get home and find a little shadow present for us after what had been a truly horrible and traumatic day. Blossom birthed on the day the lovely sheep shearer came. Found the afterbirth but no baby. There were five of us looking down the riverbank and among the she oaks but no sign all day. Just bizarre. That night Ged went out to shoot a wild dog we knew was around and found instead a cria roaming, looking for his Mum. Ged had gun raised and him in his sights until he saw the long neck. Good thing my man is all sense and eagle eyed, especially with a gun in his hand.

Blossom was so pleased to be reunited with the boy she thought she had lost, so we called him Lost Boy and he got straight on the booby no trouble at all. Then Charity birthed another little boy child who had a hard time getting on the boob and seemed weak and she seemed distressed. We came home from town and found him roasting in the sun down by the river and hauled him up under the lemon tree in the house paddock while I found bottle, teat and cria milk. It was only after his second bottle that I thought to check his bum, something we were told to do with all newborns. No anus opening. Shit!

So I left him with Mum and rang Ged, the vet and Ged again. There was no way we could afford a new arsehole two weeks before Christmas and the vet said the prognosis was not good. Back and forth I went on the phone, to the shed, to Charity who looked at me beseechingly saying ‘do something, do something’ and to that strong little boy who was so determined to live. I even tried to make the cut myself and learned that while vets make it look easy, it’s not. I called him Hope because ‘where there’s life, there’s hope’ and the next morning when he was still as determined to stay here as ever, and both the Bowen ladies had concurred that he just needed a simple cosmetic procedure. I rang the vet again but they couldn’t do him, so rang another vet, struck a deal with him re cost and raced Hope back out to the road so the Bowen ladies could take him into town.

Phew! $500 or so later he is just fine, no problems at all, a feisty, bouncing boy and Charity was so happy to have him home and well. She lost her little Christmas last year, we had to save Hope to give her hope . . .

And then there was Ruby. Born while our beloved Grippers were here after Christmas with one blood red eye (hence her name) she wouldn’t stand up, her neck was bent, she had a strange one eyed view of the world and we worked out that she was almost certainly blind. And after a week of trying to get her on the boob and bottle feeding her, and spending lots of time on Google, we realised she had the very rare choanal atresia which meant that she couldn’t breathe through her nose. She would progressively turn blue while drinking her bottle. We had to say enough and let her go.

Each one has a name, a personality, a soul and heart. Letting any of them go is really hard.

The rest of the lambs were rams and now the cows are setting their burdens on the ground. First Paddy, our Jersey cross whose udder is progressively bigger with each baby and each time we say ‘no more’ but she always finds her way to a bull somewhere! She birthed lovely little Melissa a few days ago and Ged and I had to milk the colostrum out and bottle feed her. I finally really got the hang of milking and feeling the chamber fill and release – beautiful. Then, having persuaded her to latch onto one teat, I had to try and train her to try the other side which is lower and with a stumpier teat. Anybody who ever says breast feeding is easy is a fool – best, yes, but rarely easy!

Honey birthed down in the rain yesterday no dramas at all and just turned up at the house with a littlie going great guns at the milk bar, the rain is so atrocious we haven’t got close enough to sex it or name it, but Ged thinks it is a boy which will fill the freezer later – poor Honey, she needs to have a girl so she can keep it close.

Here’s hoping the rest of the calves and cria come easily and no more problems, we have had a steep learning curve this year, but each experience gives us knowledge, hardens our hands (if not our hearts) and makes us more like farmers . . .

The Business of Birth

I pulled my first calf this morning.  That makes me a farmer for sure.  I learned how to do it by reading James Herriott’s books – it just goes to show how useful reading is in later life!

We have been waiting and waiting for Daisy to give birth.  Every morning asking Ben ‘do you think Daisy will have had her calf this morning?’ and then going off for a drive to find her still pregnant, udder full to bursting, waddling on the pasture, unconcerned.  This morning still no calf but as I walked back from the gate where I had been chatting to the fencing man who came to do a quote, I saw that she had started labouring.  All our little herd were around her giving quiet support and protection as she engaged in every animal’s most primal act.

I watched in the sun as she pushed and rested.  Backing up as she pushed, tail held high and then snatching at grass in between times.  After a while I realised she didn’t seem to be making much progress and when she lay down walked over slowly to check.  Two feet still in the sack protruding and no sign of the nose so I grasped the forelegs, broke the bag and tried to pull.  Nothing happened so I put both hands in to feel for the head.  It seemed to be quite a way in and I could feel the tongue lolling out of the mouth and so I pulled with left hand fingers hooked in the jaw and right on one of the forelegs and urged Daisy to push.  One huge heave and the head was out but no signs of life.  Another and the baby was out and on the ground but inert and very dead looking.  I reikied it and stroked it hard and talked to it and exhorted it to live.  Paddy came over and licked it while Daisy rested for a few minutes.  Finally it breathed and the heart started.  It was probably only 2 minutes but it felt like a long time . . . I briefly considered picking it up and shaking it or whirling it around me head but it was pretty heavy so lucky it started breathing without my having to resort to such extremes!

Daisy got up and busied herself with cleaning the ground of the detritus of birth before she attended in any way to her baby.  The calf flopped and wriggled, wet and fish like on the ground, in its first attempts to ‘find its feet’.  Finally Daisy turned her attentions to her child, licking and nudging her to stand and then when she did, cleaning her up as she shivered in the sun and sneezed all the amniotic fluid out of lungs and head.  Daisy was in true primal mode.  Normally she is so placid and relaxed but this was high drama and urgency – cleaning up so as not to attract predators, getting that calf on its feet and moving so it could run away from any attack.  All the other cows were there as a shield, watching with interest, not getting involved, but lending support just by being there.

Daisy expelled the placenta and promptly ate it, scrubbing the grass clean with her tongue.  Still the baby hadn’t had a drink and it was clear that there was a time for everything.

I left them to go for my run and came back to find a girl calf with a full belly happily sucking on her Mother and Dais licking me as if to say ‘thank you’.

But then I wondered – did I need to intervene or was it all unfolding perfectly?  Was I right to get in and help or was I unable, like so many doctors, to just sit and wait and watch and allow and TRUST?

We don’t do trust, us human beings, do we?  We don’t trust nature or ourselves or our children, friends or family.  We don’t trust each other, we don’t trust that there is a force far greater and more powerful than us which rules the heavens, has natural laws and knows far more than we do.  Or is it just that we are so scared – of death, of standing by, of the rawness and urgency of life at its most primal, that we feel we have to DO something, we can’t just sit and wait and be present in the moment and conscious in the flow of life’s great mysteries.

It was a beautiful thing to watch and be part of.  It was a beautiful day.  And now I have more empathy and sympathy for those medicos who insist on pulling and grabbing and cutting and sucking babies out.  It’s fear and awe.  I need to learn to wait and watch and so do they.  I’ll never know whether Daisy needed my intervention this morning or whether she was just fine on her own.  Neither will they.  We all need to trust the Mother, trust the baby, trust the process, trust the forces far greater than us and just enjoy being witness to a miracle.

Arthur, King of Avalon

Well that Mad Cow FINALLY had her baby!  Her udders were so swollen she could barely walk so Ged had a big chat to her when he fed her on Saturday night and said ‘that’s enough, Paddy, you’ve got to have that baby now.’  And when he woke up yesterday morning she was standing apart from the rest and looking a little strained so he went out to give her a hand.  Apparently the nose and hooves were out but Paddy was heaving so he got his hands in there and eased the head, neck and shoulders out.  The rest came out with just one push.  (Good that he is getting lots of practise!)  And we have a little bull for the farm.  Arthur, King of Avalon.  He’s VERY cute and cuddly with the longest, spikiest lashes you have ever seen.

So we wasted quite a lot of time oohing and aahing over him yesterday and making sure that he was on the udder and sucking properly – Ged had to help him get on the teat and work it all out.
Last week was pretty quiet – we had grey skies, wind and rain for Wednesday and Thursday and I took to my bed with a mean old cold.  I can’t work out whether I am exhausted and it’s finally caught up with me and now I am the incredible sleeping giant, or whether I am just trying to bank some sleep for the future . . . probably a bit of both!  It seems strange that after months of not sleeping properly, now that the head is engaged and all the books say I should be weeing more frequently and more uncomfortable at night etc, I am sleeping like a log!  Typical, contrary me!
Friday we had torrential rain and we both had plans to be in Port Macquarie.  Even though the rivers and creeks were rising we made the call to get in and get out as quickly as possible.  Ged was selling his car, so that couldn’t be put off, and I had to pick up the sander etc but the conditions were terrible so we really were running around!  We finally left Port Macquarie just after 4 and the closer we got to home, the less likely it seemed we would get in.  Every creek and causeway was flooded and we were in Ged’s new van which hasn’t had the suspension raised yet so we weren’t taking any chances . . . Sure enough, we got to Tom’s Creek and didn’t like the look of it.  Ged waded across to gauge the depth and flow and remove a lot of branches from the bridge (he was securely tied on to the car to do this – don’t try this at home!) and it was a foot deep and whereas that would have been fine in the Pajero or the Hilux we had just sold, no good for the Delica.  We need to toughen it up first!
So we decided to walk home and come back for the car in the morning (5kms).  We put on whatever waterproofs we had (Mel, you will be pleased to hear that the only hat Ged had in the car was his UK flat cap and since we have now discovered that it suits him, it has become a firm favourite, getting lots of wear this weekend!) and then were lucky enough to see a hitherto unmet neighbour on her way home and she drove us all the way to the Flying Fox.  Thank God, I was not looking forward to getting my feet wet and cold and then the long march home, especially when I was only just recovering from a cold.  The lovely Chris Latimore came and picked Ged up on Saturday morning and took him back to the car, so we are well served with kind and compassionate neighbours out here in the country!
Ged was sick on Saturday with some sort of horrible tummy bug so I dosed him all day with homeopathics and reiki, knowing he just needed a rest – he has been working really hard both during the week and at the weekends, so his body finally forced him to take it easy.  Thankfully he was better on Sunday though – lots to do!!!  He sanded back the floor in the baby’s room which is now looking and feeling lovely and I have got two coats of Tung Oil down so far.  In a couple of days we will have it all ready for the little man and then he can move in!