A calf for Evil-the-one.

My 12 year old spotted the cow first. Down near the bottom of the meadow, now underwater with overflow from Lawson Creek, swollen with spring snowmelt. The cow was standing on a little island along the field edge in the rain. I looked vainly for little ears, any sign of life at her feet, but saw none. We slogged over there.

The stillborn calf lay on the other side of the berm she stood on, still above the flood water, and thoroughly cleaned and bathed by her mother’s caring tongue. Any good cow would do that, I knew, just following the protocol the Maker gave them to best take care of their young, even if dead. I knew the cow would stand guard over her baby for several days, leaving only to feed on hay with the others, lest a marauding coyote or wolf try to take a bite out of her calf.

We set up a trap with some hay along a fence a few hundred yards away. She was tough, as many young mothers often are, nearly running over a hired man and destroying a fence and a heavy duty cow panel. Finally, we coaxed her into the trailer with 2 other cows. While she waited in the trailer, I headed back down to the calf and skinned it, taking the hide with me. I left the carcass for the coyotes and other critters. Figure they gotta eat too. It would probably be gone in a day. We have many bald eagles hanging around the place that pretty much scarf up whatever the coyotes leave. We then loaded up and drove the mile or so to the home corrals and unloaded there.

Later that day while we were feeding, I kidnapped one of a set a twins we had the other day. Cows don’t count well, so twins are not real desirable. Often a cow will forget about one on the big pastures or the range, and it will go hungry without mom’s milk and often starve, and before you know it, they too become coyote and wolf food, especially without a protective mom watching out for them. We put the calf in the pickup cab, and drove home, dropping the calf off in a barn pen for the night.

The next morning, I could hear the twin calf bawling for mom from the barn. I set out, grabbed the calf hide and some baling twine and fashioned a little coat out to put on the little guy. He struggled pretty hard at first, not really liking his new fur coat, but settled into it fairly well. He was good and hungry—just perfect for what came next.

I ran the mom into the grafting pen—a 14 x 14 pen with solid 2 and 3” board paneling all around it 6 feet high. Built tough for wild range cattle. I’ve never had a cow escape, though many have tried. We make certain there are plenty of places for us to vault over the top in case things get dicey as my 220 lbs flesh and bone (can’t seem to keep fat on) is straw in the wind when put up against a 1200 lb pile of black angus protective angst. Last year one sent both Tim the hired guy and I over the side of the pen. Just yesterday one knocked me down in the barn (she had me cornered against board fence and I didn’t climb fast enough)—but the same day I was scratching another one between the ears. Cows are pretty transparent about how they are feeling—you can pretty much tell when they want to get you. When they want to get out of the calving pen, they usually head butt the gate or try to jump, but it is just too high, especially for the amount of runway they have to clear the high bar.

In the pen is a wooden head catch that we slip cows into so that we can put a new calf to sucking on their milk bar. Often we will tie their legs together so they can’t kick the novitiate into brain-dead oblivion.

The cow is in the pen and the gate is closed. She looks over it quickly, but carefully, looking for a way out. A range cow is rarely comfortable in such surroundings—she has been living in an essential wide open wilderness some 8 months a year and must be cautious and guarded. We have encountered more than our share of predators when we are horseback gathering or moving cattle—I’m sure she has stories to tell that would make our tales look pretty paltry.

She sees the hole and rams into it. I pull the rip cord and in a second she is caught, even while fighting as if for her life. The entire barn seems to rattle and shake with her effort to be free, but I swing the squeeze panel into place and she is immobilized.

I hurry the calf over and push his little head against her udder. He knows what to do. The milk bar is full, much to his delight, and his tail begins to wag merrily from side to side. He forgets all about his little coat.

All is well, I think, and jump out after letting them both free in the pen. She sniffs the fur coat, and in an instant, she believes it is hers. I have even taken white or red calves, put a black calf hide coat on them, and they were well accepted. Smell is number one. I’m told a range cow can scent her baby from 12 miles away. I check once more as I leave the barn and sure enough, baby is delightedly eating from his new mom.

About an hour later, I’m driving the hay truck flatbed with a load of hay and about 5 singing, giggling girls on the back. As we go by the barn, I try to quiet the girls down in time, but was not quite fast enough. The barn began to shake from within as a 1200 lb cow began to try to break out of the heavy duty pen by jumping through or over. I guess she didn’t like the singing. We hear a 3” by 14” piece of Douglas-fir panel board crack as she rams into it. I peek through the crack in the barn door to see her complete the destruction as she is balanced by her belly on the broken 6 foot high panel fence. In a moment she was through, and soon after over another corral fence to freedom and some other cows, leaving her new baby behind.

I had nearly given up on the old girl (after all, she had broken 2 fences and wrecked one steel panel) when Caryl and the girls suggested we get her back in on horseback with a bunch of other cows. I sent the girls off to do it, and it worked! We kept some gentle babysitter cows in with her, and she again took on her new baby to complete the bond that was started.

Another calf had a mother, and another mother had a calf. That’s really our goal through calving season; to send everyone up on the high ranges with a baby to raise.

Many folks ask us why some of our cows can be so wild (they aren’t all this way). There are not many that are actually mean—they are simply wildly protective—usually of their calf. I guess I wouldn’t want it any other way. We have had cows run off predators like coyotes, bears, cougars and wolves and even rouge dogs in search of easy meat. A gentle, quiet cow probably would not stand up.

But it does mean that you always watch your own backside. Maybe a degree in cow psychology would help.

Either way, I was thinking that my 12 year old figured it out, ‘cause as we were bumping down the road in the noisy rattle banging two ton, I thought I heard her say to me “Did Evil-The-One finally take her calf?”

I looked at her quizzically. “Did who take her calf?”

“E101.”

“I thought you said ‘Evil the One’.

We both laughed as we both knew that no longer would she be named by her tag number. Evil-the-One it would be forever. Not all the cows have names, but those who earned them, do. At least with a name like that, we will always be on guard…