The Stupidest Calf Ever Born

I've been pretty sick this week, so it was a big deal for Earl to call from the barn last night and ask me to come up and try to get the new calf to take a bottle. This, he said, is the Stupidest Calf Ever Born. She won't suck on anything, she doesn't want to have anything to do with people, or at least me, and she doesn't even seem to have an ounce of self-preservation. Yup. I've heard this before.

The first Stupidest Calf that I remember was Marley, and she was pretty stupid. She was born breech and she pretty much got everything backward. She drank from a bottle okay, but she was in the Remedial Bucket Drinking class for months, somehow convinced that the milk that was so tasty when it was in her mouth was toxic if it touched her chin or nose. When she and the other calves born that spring were weaned and learning about the electric fence, all the other little calves would touch it once and then stay away from the bad zappy string. Marley ran toward the fence, got zapped, and then sat down, still touching it. Every Single Time. She was unhappy and freaked out, but didn't seem to understand that she was the one driving her body.

Noodle, Ursula, and Sabrina were also notably dim. There were a few not-so-smart bull calves, but for the most part, they know where they stand and eat voraciously, without a fuss. They don't usually, like Bette did, try to nurse on the handle of the bucket, ignoring the milk inside.

As I was walking up to the barn, I was looking forward to sweeping in and saving the day with my patience and my calf tricks. Earl has plenty of calf tricks, but he's low on patience. He has lots of patience for the cows, but calves have none of the cows' stoic calm and when they won't even do the simplest things to keep themselves alive, it pisses him off. So he calls me and I come up and teach Bottle Drinking 101 and I get to feel like a hero and Earl lets me think I alone stood between the calf and doom (when really I stood between Earl and fifteen more minutes at the barn).

The calf was up and looking pretty alert when I got there. She's a full Guernsey and she's equal parts white and that orangey-brown color, distributed in nice spots and blotches. She's Neet's daughter and Naan's granddaughter and so Earl named her Niice. (I just don't know what to tell you about the cow naming around here except that I think Earl is trying to bait me to spend more time at the barn so we won't have a whole herd of dumb-named cows.) Niice was all fluffy and healthy looking and didn't look like all that tough a customer to me.

I climbed into her pen and let her take her time getting used to me. Then I put my fingers in her mouth and we had problem number one, no sucking response. I rubbed the roof of her mouth, I stroked under her chin. Nada. So I tried the bottle. Nothing. She flopped her tongue out of the side of her mouth. I tucked in back in. She flopped it back out. I tucked it back in. Many, many times. I took a break and got her fresh straw to bed on. I tried again. And again. And then I gave up and Earl raised his eyebrows and said, "Really? You give up?" So I climbed in and tried again. I leaned over her, so she'd feel like she was under a cow and I tucked my elbows in close to her eyes. (Sometimes animals, like small children, forget to be quite so psychotically unreasonable when it's dark.) And she started, very slowly, to suck. And she was very slow and not very strong about it, but she was actually sucking. She even swallowed. I held my breath, waiting for the colostrum to hit her bloodstream and start to give her the energy to really get going. And then Earl leaned over and asked, in what was probably just his normal voice but seemed the loudest yelling ever, "How's it going?" and she remembered herself and we were back in the World of Stupid. Nothing I could do after that would get her to suck at all. Nothing. And I'm not a girl who gives up easy.

And so I believe she is indeed the Stupidest Calf Ever Born. Earl ended up tubing her (squeezing the milk directly into her stomach with this special long-tubey thing designed for calves who are too weak to suck; apparently it works on stupid, too). Maybe the protein will make her a little bit smarter. I hope so, because I have to wrap this up and see if she'll take any better to the bucket.

Wish me luck.