Farm Wife Rambling: If You Have Livestock…

I woke up to the sound of a cow bellowing this morning. Our cows are pretty happy critters, so incessant bellowing is pretty significant.

It was probably 109, looking for her calf, poor thing.

I once attended a lecture on farming, and I remember the speaker saying that if you have livestock, you’ll have dead stock. No ifs, ands, or or buts.

Unfortunately, that’s true, and 109’s calf was our first bovine casualty since – well, the only one I can think of, actually.

As best we can tell, the cows must have been lying down together, and when one of them got up, they must have swiped her in the head as they walked past, not seeing her.

109 (her ear tag #) is one of those good moms who doesn’t even like to let the most familiar humans get a good look at her calves. But freak accidents still happen.

What a waste of a lovely heifer calf.

That’s one of the drawbacks of such a small beef operation. The loss of one calf is a big deal. Not that we’re going to starve or anything because of it.

On the other end of the spectrum, Gabriel is taking Ellie, my parent’s old dairy cow, to the slaughterhouse today.

Yes, we’re killing a cow with a name. She’s a good cow, too. I’m glad I’m not the one hauling her to her doom.

I know slaughterhouses have a bad reputation thanks to the efforts of various animal rights organizations, so let me assure you, this small slaughterhouse is very nice. I do not doubt that this is the most humane way for Ellie to go.

Like I said, she’s an old milk cow. She’s been a good cow. Unfortunately, she’s been running with a bull for two years, and no calf is in sight. Her productivity is at an end. Now it’s either grow old in a pasture that could be growing two calves instead of maintaining one retired cow, and watch her arthritis get worse until she can no longer get around, and her digestion grows poorer until she’s nothing but skin and bones. Or, take her to the butcher, where she’ll be humanely put down.

It may be a bit of a harsh reality that eating what for so long was essentially a family pet, but that’s farm life for you, as it has been for thousands of years. Only recently have people come to think that’s a horrible thing, and I’m so glad to have the opportunity to raise my son without this farm/table disconnect.