Up and Down

It's been an up and down day.  Christina went down yesterday about 5pm.  We gave her medicine and she got up but half an hour later she was down again.  We left her alone to see if her would get better on her own, but after an hour, she wasn't recovering.

We had one dose of drench left and gave it go her.  We called the wonderful people we bought her from and asked advice.  They said that if she wasn't eating enthusiastically we should give her another bottle of calcium under the skin.  In we went to get everything ready but when we came back out, Christina was standing up looking at us.  Well, you can't poke a cow in the neck whose got some gumption in her.  She continued doing well until 10pm, our last check of the night.  Then she was laying down, her ears felt pretty cool, and her nose was dry.  We had one dose of calcium gel left and she took it. 

In the cold dark night, we hung out with her for a while, but her nose stayed dry and she was still laying down.  Back in for the needle and calcium.  We got everything ready, Brian pulled her skin up and began to set the needle when she lept to her feet and walked off.  Well OK!  Any cow who can run away must be doing okay.

This morning we found her standing and eating.  Her ears feel downright warm.  She may be through this challenge.

Her milk is really starting to come in; as we washed her to get ready for milking, all four quarters just streamed out.  Pepper was able to be very helpful with milking.  He cleaned out one quarter and worked on another. He's still such a baby; we have to lead him to the teet and help him find it when he pops off. 

Now we have a new problem.  A CMT test of her milk showed two quarters with some infection.  I've heard that mastitis is really common after milk fever so now we deal with that.  After shoving needles through her skin, slipping these little tubes into her teets was easy and smooth.

When we were finally done, we let pepper out to play.  Jerky reached through the fence to kiss his little brother. 

Last year milk fever was so terrifying for me.  This year I felt like we knew what to do and had to stuff to do it.  We were attentive but I wasn't consumed with the fear and stress that marked last year's experience.  God has graced us with experience.