Calf CPR...

We had a momma cow who had a baby. G'pa and I watch closely to make sure the baby is doing well and eating, and that the momma cow is taking good care of her new baby. Well this momma cow had very big teat, and the poor lil calf couldn't get her mouth around them to suck to get milk. We watched her for 2 days, and never saw her nurse. The baby was starting to get weak, so G'pa decided we needed to catch them both. G'pa was going to "grab" the baby and jump into the back of the golfcart and I was going to drive them to the pen, knowing the momma would follow her baby. Well this calf may have been only 2 days old, but probably weighed around 70 pounds. G'pa had one heck of time getting it into the bed of the golfcart once he caught it. Now momma weighs about 1200 pounds, and what you don't want is a momma mad at you for taking her baby. So there's G'pa trying his best to get away with the calf without momma charging him. Finally he gets her in there, she's kicking and "MOOING" and squirming around. I look back and G'pa's on the bottom and that calf is on top of him. I'm driving as fast as I can to get them to the pen before that calf and G'pa both fall out the back. It was kinda funny (don't tell G'pa I said that lol).

We get the calf and momma in the pen, and get momma in the head chute. G'pa has to milk the momma so we can give the calf the colostrum (the first milk full of good things for the baby). We tried putting it in a bottle but the baby wouldn't suck. So G'pa has to put a tube down the baby into it's stomach and put the colostrum in that way. After we did that he pulled out the tube, and the baby calf choked and was dying. G'pa got one leg and I got the other and we held the calf upside down, hoping to get the milk out of its lungs. That didn't work.

G'pa said, we need to do CPR. Now I've done CPR on alot of people but NEVER on an animal. I started chest compression on the side of the calf and when it was time....G'pa held the baby's mouth closed and blew in its nose. Now I'll tell you, Nana was a lil grossed out by that. He did it about 4 times and the baby started to cough/moo. We had saved her for now.

The next morning we went down and the baby was still alive. I was very impressed with G'pa that he did what he did. G'pa has a very big heart when it comes to those lil babies.