Rain Man's Story

           The first time we met the calf we affectionately named Rain Man, we thought he was dead. Nick, my fiancé, and I were out checking the heifers and we heard a cow bawling as loud as she could. When we got to her, we found her laying down next to what looked to be a dead calf, but Rain Man wasn’t giving up that easy. Since, 1560, his mom, was not too keen on letting us take her baby boy to the shower, we had to climb one fence, scoot under two barbed wire fences, and open one gate, while running to the shower, where we take care of new born calves that need help.

            Nick laid him down on the black rubber floor of the shower and we thought we were losing him. His eyes kept rolling back into his head. He could not easily straighten his neck nor pick up his head, all while his legs were twitching uncontrollably and his body constantly shivered. Nick started to shower him with warm water to warm him up, while I immediately administered 5 ccs of Dexamethasone, a corticosteroid we give to newborn calves to help reduce swelling and stress caused by a difficult calving, into Rain Man’s neck.

            Nothing changed for thirty minutes.

But then the Dexamethasone kicked in and he started to feel better and could actually hold his head up. Before we knew it, our lost cause calf had finished a 2-quart bottle of colostrum, the first milk produced by a calf’s mom that gives the calf their immune system, but we gave him artificial colostrum because as it turns out Rain Man’s mom did not start producing milk, we are not really sure the cause of this.

A few hours later, Rain Man was back with his mom in the barn sitting up and looking good. We believe the reason he was in such bad shape when we found him was because he had brain damage, either from being oxygen deprived or maybe because he was kicked by him mom, we do not know the exact cause.

A day later, Rain Man was looking great. We were bottle-feeding him since his mom still had no milk, but he was eating like a champ. However, on the third day, something changed. He wouldn’t eat his bottle and he was back to shivering. We brought him into the shower room and turned on the heat. We tried every trick we had in our hat, but 48 hours after we thought we’d saved him, we lost him.

            I cried. We lost a cow unexpectedly the day before and then we lost our miracle calf. It was just a few tears until I had to look 1560 in the eyes as she was running around looking for her calf, knowing he was never coming back. These are the days that make working a desk job not look so bad, but I know I’m where God wants me to be and now Rain Man is too.