10/09/2026
Took me a bit but here’s the update from last night. Whitley had her little calf, and when I checked on it something was niggling at me, not quite right. But, it was maybe 15-30 min old. And sometimes they take a bit to get the hang of things.
We finished dinner and Shawn said let’s watch a show. I said, one min, I want to go check on the new baby. She was laying there. At this point she was only 3 hours old. But she was missing even the little bit of new baby energy. I put my finger in her mouth and it was cool and she didn’t suck. Uh oh. We don’t have electric or water out there, so the little one earned a trip to the house.
Her temp was borderline low, which typically means she hasn’t nursed properly. It wasn’t low enough we needed to warm her first, but we got some amazing KSX Colostrum in her. Then I got some towels to give her a rub down. She wasn’t fully cleaned off and I think I figured out why. It appears that she might have plopped out in cow patty. She had manure somehow rubbed into her side, armpits, everywhere on one side.
So her towel rub turned into cleaning. But not a full bath since her temp was fragile. So we just got close and personal.
Then with mom is best when possible, so we went back to the truck. Grabbed some straw and a calf coat on the way. It’s not that it was so cold, but a slightly damp baby struggling and 48-50 temps … we erred on the side of caution. Spread straw in the run in and got baby nestled in it.
But then … everyone checked out the baby in the fresh straw. Except Mama Whitley. We finally got her close and decided to give everyone room.
This morning baby was still more wobbly than I’d like but she wasn’t sunken. And this evening at 24 hours old her sides are full and she did some little baby hops. So we’ll keep watching her tomorrow!
