In the night Christina walked out to the pasture and laid down. This morning she can't get up. Our cow is down. The vet can't come until this afternoon and the dairy says she can't wait that long. Her temperature is 96, five degrees lower than normal, which makes it likely that we are dealing with milk fever, hypocalcimia. I drove out to Nampa and bought calcium and an IV set. They walked us through the process of giving her the injection under the skin. With nerves of steels (actually nerves of jello, that's all we've got now), we got the needle in and got the solution into her.
We started at 10:20 and the bottle was empty by 10:40. Now we wait. If she's not up in an hour, we give her another bottle. At least we get to do this waiting in the house.
The calf hasn't gotten much to eat with Christina down. This morning he gratefully took the bottle and emptied it quickly. I got some calf formula when I bought the calcium and the girls gave him another bottle while we worked with Christina.
Milk fever can be fatal quickly, but usually responds rapidly to treatment. God willing, she will be up soon and this will all be over. But for now, we wait.
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