At this time of year my mind goes back to when we used to raise bottle calves. We used to raise a bunch every fall, usually just around 10, sometimes a few more. One year we raised 25.
I love to raise bottle calves. Sometimes it is aggravating, when one of them gets sick, and then the whole bunch gets sick, or you lose a few more than you think you can stand financially. Having to feed them every so often, especially when there was something else you needed to do at the same time would try your patience, but we could usually work around it pretty well. One tip, don't rub heads with them, it could make you sick. I know because I love to rub heads with a baby calf.
Some of these calves had been fed the bottle before we bought them, and they were easy to get to eat, they would just latch on to the bottle the first time we tried. Others we bought had been feeding from the cow, sometimes they didn't like the change, and we would have quite a time with them, until they decided they liked the bottle, if that's all they were going to get.
Sometimes trying to get them to eat when they were being stubborn about it was quite an experience. I would try to be too gentle with them in Bob's point of view. I would rub the bottle back and forth across their mouth, and pet them, and they would just bounce away and refuse to suck the bottle. Bob would take over and try to show them who was in control. He would straddle the back of the calf and force it's mouth open and shove that bottle in and then clamp the calves' jaws onto it. Most of the time it only took one or two times before it got the idea what to do.
Sometimes though we'd get an extra stubborn one, and we'd have a miniature rodeo, with that calf bucking and twisting and Bob jumping around trying to stay on top of it. It was too small to buck Bob off, but it sure was entertaining. It was probably even more interesting when I tried it, because my legs were shorter and the calf could get the best of me in no time flat.
One of these calves stands out in my mind because of all the trouble she was. She was a large gangly Holstein calf that we named Sucker, because she could suck a 2 qt. bottle full of milk replacer in less than a minute.
She was one of those calves that had been fed by bottle before we bought her, so there was no problem getting her to take it the first time. The problem we had was how fast she sucked and swallowed. We first thought that the nipple had too large a hole, so we tried another one, and another, until we realized that calf could just suck harder and faster than most calves! so we tried holding the bottle at a different angle so it wouldn't come out so fast, and other ideas, but not matter what, less than a minute and she was through.
You might not think this would be a problem and most of the time it wasn't but once in a while Sucker would suck so fast the milk replacer would stream out of her nose, her eyes would roll back in her head, she'd start gasping like she was choking (which she was) and she'd fall down and lay there gasping and coughing.
Bob was feeding her the first time it happened, so he grabbed her head, held it up and started rubbing and stroking her neck. She coughed and wheezed a while, then got back up on her feet, staggered around a while then started butting her head against Bob's legs, wanting some more. Stupid thing.
After the calves started sucking the bottles better, they were usually my sole responsibility. I was always afraid that Sucker would have one of her choking spells, I wouldn't be able to help her and she would indeed die. But I got good at yanking her around and rubbing her neck until she felt better and could stand up. She finally grew out of this reaction when she got a little bigger, her body was more mature and she could handle all that fluid going down her throat so fast. She grew into a big lanky heifer and was finally ready to sell.
Thurman and Kay Whittaker bought her from us and she had many calves and worked at their dairy farm for many years.
That brings to mind these verses of scripture in the book of 1 Corinthians. In chapters 1-2, the Bible talks about spiritual "milk" and "meat". It is saying that unless you have received Christ into your heart and life, and have the Holy Spirit living inside you, you are not going to be able to understand the things of God. You will always be looking at things through a man's eyes, instead of the way God and the Holy Spirit would want you to understand. You can not accept the things of God, because you can not understand them. The things of God do not make any sense to you because you are like a baby in your understanding, and in a way, it overwhelms you, or it chokes you just like that stupid calf that tried to suck that bottle too fast.
If you will accept Christ into your heart, and dig into His Word and study it, more and more things will become clear to you. The more you pray, and read God's Word, the more understanding you will have. You will mature more as a Christian, so that you are better able to understand what God wants for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment