The most important part of the cattle ranching business is to save every critter.
Natural disasters, still-borns, accidents, employee error, and mysterious crazy things are going to happen. The important part is to be prepared for all the wild stuff of which new and different occurrences are going to show up daily.
Here at Dickinson Cattle Co our people work the pastures with Hondas. Each Honda has an assortment of tools that could possibly fix a lot of different disasters that can be in pastures. Last year over 600 cows were bred, so that means a lot of calves will be born and all kinds of unique predicaments WILL happen. Little calves aren’t very smart and the cows have a mind of their own. Issues include twins, coyotes, sink holes that calves fall into, calves migrating under fences, bogs by lakes, plus manifold and diverse predicaments not even thought of yet.
Here is the process of solving one snag in 15 minutes.
During pasture checks, two life and death conundrums hit at one time. One cow has a still-born calf and another has twins. The cow with the still born is well aware of her calf and has licked it all over. She knows it is her calf. The dam of twins likes one but can’t believe why the other calf is any problem to her.
Joel and Misty Dickinson are checking the calving pastures. The extra unwanted twin is caught then the still-born is taken far away from the cow and skinned.
The dead calf is skinned over the main body, always carefully leaving the tail and crotch area in tact. For some reason cows lick these parts early in the process. The cows know their own calve’s scent and they are hard to fool.
The fresh hide is tied around the legs so most of the body has the hide easy to smell and detect. No matter how sincere the effort, most calves will resist all this new stuff happening.
All of this needs to be done a long ways from the mothers so they are confused about smells and visuals. The new twin calf is transported with the new deceptive covering back to the still-born’s mother.
Real mother cows love their calves. Often a cow will stay in the area where the calf was born while some scent remains. Normally the new patch-job can be off-loaded near the grieving mother and immediately she is happy and excited enough to be protective over the calf in a few minutes. The calf has a one track mind and wants to nurse. Once there is a tummy full of milk all problems are solved. That is the 15 minute solution to one type of problem at Dickinson Cattle Co.
Now, to the rest of the herd and make sure all is well. Every little life is big at DCC.
