Nature's Poker Game

Ranchers play a high-stakes poker game with Nature with every calf that hits the ground.

Every rancher draws a different hand and each of us tries to improve our odds in different ways.

I choose to allow my cows to calve on the prairie.

I like calves to land on clean grass where the risk of scours is lower.

When my cows can keep their newborns separate from the herd, they don’t get so anxious or riled up.

They prefer privacy during these intimate moments.

The weekend forecast predicted cold wind and the possibility of 8 inches of snow so I brought the cows from a distant pasture to the Home Pasture, where coulees and windbreaks offered protection for newborns.

A calf that has no chance of surviving bone-chilling blowing snow on the open prairie might snuggle down behind a sagebrush, riding out the storm warm and cozy.

But when a cow or calf needs some assistance, the pasture can be a wide open, unforgiving space.

By Saturday afternoon, several cows separated from the herd, feeling the impending arrival of their babies.

One cow already had her calf nestled into a swale.

Ready or not, I had drawn my poker hands.

By Sunday morning, I knew I would be busy all day.

I hoped I could do enough.

I knew I hadn’t done enough when I found an already frozen calf born in the bitter cold of a hillside.

The cow was distraught over her baby, but Nature won that hand.

A wet newborn lying flat out on its side prompted me to oust the housecat from her warm bed in my kitchen.

As I spread even more hay and straw to keep cows and newborns warm, I berated myself and envied my neighbors who increase their odds by calving in corrals where their cattle are contained and protected.

Then I spotted another poker hand -- a calf snuggled down in a coulee, out of the wind, yet alone.

Typically, a cow will stand over a new calf or even lay down and curl around it to keep it warm.

I gave the cow two hours to come back to her calf.

Meanwhile, the calf that had been born in a swale the day before looked like it had not nursed yet.

The cow was attentive and the calf followed her wherever she walked, but her teats weren’t shiny, as if the calf had sucked.

My horse and I brought the pair to the corral for some intervention.

She calmly walked into the chute.

For an hour, the calf resisted my attempts to show him where to find breakfast. Finally, I milked the cow, filled my calf-tuber and dumped her milk into his belly.

He needed that critical first milk now.

I’d teach him to nurse later.

About then, the sheep shearer called to say he planned to be at my ranch on Tuesday morning.

Instead of rounding up a shearing crew – that would have to wait --- I checked on the abandoned calf.

No mama in sight.

Now was not the time to wonder why the cow left.

The calf was shivering.

He took a ride in my pickup to the barn.

Colostrum from my milk cow took a ride into his belly.

The next day, the distraught cow with no calf decided she loved, loved, loved this baby.

The pot was small, but I won that poker hand.

Two days later, the calves in the corral developed scours. My choice to calve on the pasture was partially vindicated, but the calf that froze to death didn’t know it.

I decided ranchers don’t need trips to Vegas.

We have calving season instead.