I like most people complain about the price of beef in being too high as it is too high. I though would like you to take a journey with me 2 days ago and understand the price of beef.
2 days ago a cow by the name of Roscoe in a long line of cows named that decided it was time to calf. She wandered around and finally crawled through the fence and found a place in a hay field which had me for a few hours trying to find my missing cow.
Things went according to plan and 4 hours later I found a baby calf without the afterbirth suffocating it flopping around trying to take it's first steps.
Rule number 1 in cattle is leave them alone as cows like to kill you when they are fresh (just calved) and they get all kinds of ideas like abandoning their calf.
So I left them alone and checked the next morning praying that all went well as usual.
Well, she decided to move so I opened the gate and herded a wobbling calf back into the pasture with a very intent mother checking me out and me keeping an eye on her.
The bag (udder) of the cow was swelled with milk, but clean looking so that usually means a calf has sucked.....but it didn't. All she did was bellar the most mournful weak little baaah.
What I had was what happens every few years was a flank sucker. For some reason a calf gets it in it's head to suck on the fold of skin by the hind quarters.........I have had them decide to suck on cocklebur entombed in hair balls to.
Once a calf gets something in their head they are like a Democrat with an internet column.
So it was time to get the cow and calf in to negotiate with them to do what is natural.
The cow decided running over me 3 times was a wonderful thing. I decided from experience that is not fun having the equivalent of an NFL defensive line hit you all at once as once they learn that they like doing it all the time, so I whacked her over the head with a cane........you would think it would hurt as it would pole axe a person, but with cattle and their big boneheads all you do is get their attention.
Since she wouldn't behave, it was time for the head chute. This for those who don't know is a device like the old stocks they put people in. It holds the cow so you can get close enough to work with the calf.
In watching the PBS vet show All Creatures Great and Small, I saw a nice trick of tying a cows leg back so they can't kick you.....so I did that too as having a cow break your arm or bash in your skull is not exactly something I look forward to.
With all of that we now negotiate with the calf, the calf though is 125 pounds of wrestling mania. It is like liberals in knowing it knows all there is in the world as a train is about to run the entire nation over.....but being I have 6 hands things go ok as you need 6 hands to make a calf suck.
You need 2 to hold the calf from the back, 2 to hold it's head down in position and 2 in holding the teat and one with a finger in it's mouth to get it sucking as it's sharp little teeth rasp on your knuckles.
Since I though am normal, I hold the calf between my legs having it usually buck into my male parts trying to drive them back up into me, use an elbow on it's neck to bend the head down while my hand is on the teat and the other hand is in the mouth starting the sucking process.
Fresh cows always have a wax plug in their nipple to keep the milk in, so you have to milk by hand to get the milk started. Ask a woman sometime who had a child about what her breasts feel like if someone was pulling on them as she was bouncing around trying to get away....and you pretty well get the idea of how much fun this is.
So for the next hour you negotiate like this as your legs and back scream in burning pain as the calf fights you, cow whips you in the eyes with her coarse tail every 15 seconds while she is kicking at you held back by the rope.
Most calves if you squirt some milk in their mouth with your finger in there will start sucking....nope not my little gem, she just fought me.
When you quit sweating as you have no more water in your body, you decide to get a bottle and milk the cow as a sort of primer to convince the calf that nursing is fun.
Oh and that first milk is called colostrum, it is loaded with all kinds of things including the staff of life to get a calf's body up and working in digestion.....if you don't get that milk into the system in the first 24 hours.......they die a lingering death of starvation as they can not absorb food without that life starter.
So with only the cow kicking at me, I milk her sore bag and get about a pint into the bottle and then wrestling match part 2 starts as the calf almost needs to be drown in milk to swallow it. This time I had a new bottle and the milk wouldn't come out....so after enough of that the old trapper pocket knife comes out for the rubber nipple and the milk starts cooperating.
The calf sucks.....but it decides as I try to put her onto the cow that I am much more fun as a mother as I don't kick...it decides it is full.......so everyone gets a break.......except upon being released the cow decides she wants to jump the fence and get away from the calf she is mooing at.......her in a pen she can't jump cures that.
With all hope that the next day all will be well, today arrives in day number 3 of this adventure.
The cow is with the calf which is wonderful as some just love to kick, bunt and try and kill the calf. In watching them, the wonderful memories of flank sucking still remain as I watch with a scowl a calf trying to suck a now more patient cow with a red inflamed bag.
So it is back the old head chute, the cow though goes in backwards and since caught is caught, I deem it a deal even though I can't get the leg roped so the kicker has free access to me as I hide behind the calf.
The calf has decided that sucking is about as profitable as a Republican starting a business in Taxachuesettes. So back to milking the cow who has decided today jumping around is really allot of fun.
I get almost a quart and start the mommy sequence again. The calf will not suck at all, so I have to pump it's jaw to squeeze the nipple and wrestle mania finally gets the calf sucking again.
With new energy, interest and fire in my calf, back we go to the cow fighting the whole time. An hour into this, I have just had it in exhaustion and pain and I announce to whoever and hope God is listening I can't take anymore.
I kneel down and look at that hoof which is now in range of my head as not such a bad thing in bashing in my skull and ending this once and for all........and about that time the Angles get dispatched as they always do and the calf is inspired to start sucking for the first time in her life.
Calves though still always think they know it all and just as your hopes are soaring that calf will spit that teat out and go to flank sucking, bucking, slamming into you and other delights in fighting as you try again and again to get that head bent down, positioned to take that teat which is slippery as a greased hog........as the cow has decided that slamming her body into you is a pretty neat trick to try.
Slowly though for the next hour the calf starts sucking. It starts as finding the teat on it's own as the cow is moving side to side every 30 seconds.....so as the calf nurses the process pulls on her womb bringing it back to position like it does in all mammals which adds wonderful new pain to the cow to deal with in this wonderful circus you have joined in.....but as the moments turn into minutes........ you begin to find this peaceful smile on your face watching that new life finally get it right and that maybe all will be right in the world again.
Sure you get the cow some hay which she likes in the chute.....sure you get her some water in a bucket, but are not stupid enough to get close enough to get bunted.......but you are nice enough to get a second pale as you watch her devil inspiration in cleverly knocking over the bucket 3 times just for amusement to get back at you.
The calf though wagging her tail is busy nursing one side of the bag out.......yup cows have 2 sides and you can't fill a baby calf up with too much milk or it will expand in their gut and crimp the intestine and kill them quicker than a 22 bullet to the head.
That though ends day 3 in the adventures of the cost of beef. I have hope that tomorrow the calf and cow will have it all figured out like it should have been from the beginning. That though was only 3 days with 362 more to go.
There will be the days they need to be worked, the days you have to hope God keeps them safe from blizzards and lightning strikes.......days of coccidiosis when soil poisons a calf with blood diarrhea and kills them.....days you hope your stupid neighbors cattle with some fricking diseases do not come smashing through your fence and getting your animals dead.........days you hope Oprah doesn't bash beef or Bob Barker isn't whining about animals that you are putting your life in jeopardy over not for money, but because something in you loves this misery which only they can give.
That is the price of beef and yesterday I was ready to sell the whole blessed bunch as no one needs that kind of frustration.......and today.....well beef is still too high to buy, but for what I go through........it could be a million dollars an ounce and it still would be too cheap.
That is the price of beef.
agtG
