To Ben and I, and most farmers, the illness, death or sale of an animal is never an easy issue and a few weeks ago we had a prime example of that gut wrenching sort of experience. We have had animals die, animals get sick and need to be put down, animals get shipped to auction and animals go into our freezer, I can't think of a single time that the event didn't cause some sort of mental anguish for us. Even #17, an ornery wild child of a milk cow who wouldn't breed back, caused me grief. I always said I hated that cow, she caused me hours of extra work because we had to chase her around the barnyard to go in for milking, four feet of snow outside the old barn door and she would decide to dip and dive amongst the snow drifts to stay outside with the bull. I cursed her many days, but when we found out there was no way she would breed back and we needed to 'cull' her (this generally means they go for beef, not the beef we sell, but to a major slaughterhouse where they end up in wholesale ground beef) I still was not happy. I didn't jump for joy that she was leaving, I felt sorry that her life needed to end for this minor infraction, but we can't afford to keep our cull cows around to live out their days.
So there are many of these instances of mental anguish over the loss of an animal, but the instance at hand was a little different. We had a five year old milk cow with a twisted stomach. We were quite confident that the vet could fix it surgically without the use of antibiotics, but she had a couple strikes against her already. First, her name was 'Ugly' for good reason, sharp angular features dominated her. She was too tall and thin to be a good grazer, her feet were bad from the day we bought her and her teats had always pointed together in a way that had made milking her a little more difficult. This lactation however, her teats were pointing outwards, which means that the dividers in her udder were losing their elasticity(think about aging and gravity in women). The vet arrived, ready and willing to do an operation to untwist the cow's stomach and tack it in place so it wouldn't happen again. My husband, Ben, wasn't feeling well so he was in the house when the vet arrived. I pointed Ugly out and the vet brought her into our milking parlor to get a better look at her. Upon checking her temperature he found that she had a fever of over 103 which is his cut off for not allowing a conventional cow to have surgery. For a non-organic dairy the vet would give the cow antibiotics and come back the next day to see if the temp had dropped enough to operate, but since we are organic the vet doesn't have the luxury of treating with antibiotics and waiting for the temp to come down could mean the twisted stomach would kill her.
About this time Ben came out to the parlor and asked the vet why Ugly would have a fever. The vet explained that Ugly's left lung was not functioning properly and pneumonia was the cause of the fever. Ben was horrified that in May (generally a very healthy time for our cows) we could have a cow with pneumonia, but the vet shrugged his shoulders and explained that he had seen it a lot recently, perhaps due to the cold wet Spring.
So Ben listed for the vet all of the strikes against Ugly; bad feet, bad udder, twisted stomach, pneumonia and an extremely slim chance of living long enough to have surgery to fix her stomach. Basically the decision was written on the wall. We could keep her at home, treat her with natural supplements to try and boost her immunity, but most likely she would die in the next few days and we would have to pay a rendering service to come pick her up. Our other option would be to ship her to auction as soon as possible, get about $1000 for her to be sent to a major slaughterhouse. The vet mentioned that one of our neighbors had just arranged to have some cull cows picked up by our cattle hauler, so that was the last straw, Ugly would be leaving today.
We hadn't raised her, we hadn't even owned her for more than 2 years, she was a good milker, but not fantastic, she wasn't extremely personable like some of the other girls, but she wasn't as unpersonable as others, no great genetic lineage made her more valuable, but she held a special place in my heart as our 'ugly girl.' When the vet mentioned that the cattle hauler would be nearby within the next hour Ben nodded his head in acknowledgement of the decision that we both knew was made. Ben did not make eye contact with me, but I would guess his stomach was churning just as mine was. I needed to turn away from Ben, our son Will, the vet, and most importantly Ugly, to catch my breath as I gulped back a cry and wipe the tears that were welling up in my eyes.
This wasn't the most tragic loss we have had, nor was it the most insignificant, but every time I visit Ugly's calf, a cute little girl named Kermit, I get a ball in my throat and think of how I miss seeing Ugly every day. I miss her when I bring the cows in from pasture, I miss having her at the back of the line, sore foot keeping her from moving very fast, low hanging udder swaying with each step and her sharp hip bones protruding as she meandered back to the barn. I miss her, plain and simple. Do I miss all of the ones that we lose or get rid of, no, but is each loss hard, yes, most definitely!
We paid $2200 for Ugly, fed her organic feed for 2 years and sold her for less than half what we paid, it isn't all about money (if it were we wouldn't be farmers), but we have to pay the bills. So the best we can do right now is respect the animals, respect their sacrifice, respect their nature, respect their memory, this is a business, not a sanctuary. I miss Ugly, Ben misses Ugly, but by the afternoon of the day she left we were on to other struggles, other tasks and even other heartaches.
