Life and Death at Cow College

The cows were dying; of that I was certain. All of them. As I stood in the low angle sunlight of this February morning, they huddled around me, silently. I could see their slack bellies and ribcages in the early morning light. The windrow of lovely and fragrant green alfalfa hay that I laid down the day before still lay on the ground, untouched. All around us were tall stands of stockpiled grass over 3 feet high, purposely held back from the previous summer, also uneaten.

I looked at their heads, huddled close in, around me. Even their faces were wan; eyes were set back in their sockets. Their stoic and glazed looks were unsettling. There was something missing, and then it came with a sudden realization: there was not one of them chewing cud. They looked at me expectantly; now, more than any other time, I wished they could talk. I had no idea what could be ailing them. There were over 250 in this bunch, all carrying our next summer’s crop of calves, and they were wasting away. What could be wrong?

I walked slowly through the snow, down the field, toward their water. The cows had abundant stock water in the form of warm springs at the bottom of this field; it had never been a problem. The girls followed me slowly, expectantly, thinking that I was going to give them silver bullet they needed. I stopped about fifty feet from the warm water stream that bordered the bottom of the field. It was steaming in the zero-degree air. The water was well above freezing, and rolling by, clear as a windowpane like it always had been. The creek was full to the top of the banks with warm water. There was tall grass all the way down to the shallow bank of the creek, with good footing. They could easily drink all they wanted.

I turned and looked at my slack-sided cows. I recalled that the day before, they seemed hesitant to eat. Now, they followed me in desperation. In another 2 days, I estimated they would start dying. I briskly walked back to the hay,

scooped up some in my hands, and sniffed it. I bit a few alfalfa leaves off, and started chewing. The normal green beany taste filled my mouth. Everything seemed right, except the cows. As I thought and chewed, they formed a tight semicircle around me. Two hundred and fifty pairs of eyes, with steam rising from their backs and nostrils created a sort of bovine fog around me.

Correction: it was 248 pairs of eyes. I noticed two did not come to look at me. They were making their way down to water. It was an almost level trail to the creek, but they had stopped halfway, and turned to look back at me with mournful eyes.

I ran down to them. There was a good trail through the tall grass that they had been using to access the warm water. It had a multitude of footprints down it. Every cow had been using it. I turned back to look at the cows, and instinct turned me back to the water. There was something unusual about what I had seen; something didn’t quite fit. I scanned the free flowing creek before me again and my eye kept coming back to the hoarfrost on the tall grasses, glistening in the morning sunlight. It was on the grass along the trail beyond the two cows.

My eye stopped, locked on hoarfrost and my mind produced a thought: If any cows had walked the trail this morning, the hoarfrost would have been knocked off. The cows hadn’t been down to drink this morning. They won’t go down there. I looked back at my wan cows. It seemed that the truth was that they would literally rather die than go down there.

I walked past my two black Angus coal mine canaries, and in just another 10 feet, I found the problem. There, underneath the tall grass and hoarfrost along the trail, was solid ice. Hockey ice. The creek must have formed an ice dam downstream where the water was colder, away from the warm springs. The water rose behind the dam and backed up and flooded the

lower flat meadow around my warm spring. It would have happened in the night, probably several nights ago when we had a sub-zero night. As I walked parallel to the creek, bulletproof ice under the cloaking and thick grass was everywhere along the length of the creek.

Fact: cows don’t walk on ice. All it takes is one time for them to splay their front legs, on hooves out of control like Bambi with Thumper, and they are set in mind for life. It’s actually a wise thought, as I have heard of neighbors who owned young cows that split pelvises when they went down, splaying rear legs on pond ice. The only solution was to grab the rifle, and put the poor girl out of her misery.

Those cows just needed a drink. But they are surrounded by water in snow, I thought. There was 1 foot of snow on the ground. I had gotten by for weeks on end on the range with cows living on snow for water in the wet snowstorms that defined fall. I reached down and fingered the snow. It was powder dry Rocky Mountain midwinter snow. It hardly made my bare hand wet. I tried making a snowball, but the snow-dust fell away, and filtered through my fingers like cold smoke to the ground. This snow was perfect for my ski-loving family, but poor on moisture content. It would take more energy to eat and thaw it than it would be worth getting sustenance out of.

I ran to the pickup. As I ran by the cows, I wondered what was going through their minds. That’s it. We are doomed. Even the Boss can’t save us.

I pressed the starter button and punched the stick in second gear on the old Ford 300-6 and roared up the field, turning toward the shop and the backhoe. As I swung through the turn, I caught a view of the Continental Divide. It had the telltale Arctic ice cloud above it. Bad deal. By tonight, we could be facing a subzero blizzard from Montana. If I couldn’t get those cows taken care of by then, I would certainly lose some; many others would live but lose their in-utero calves.

I pulled up to the barn and the backhoe. Thank God I plugged it in. I grabbed a can of ether, liberally sprayed the air intake, and fired Casey up. The ancient 1960’s backhoe hesitated, choked, sputtered and caught. Sigh of relief. I let the diesel barely warm up and roared down the field, to the cows, about a mile away.

The girls were waiting for me at the gate and followed me down into the field. They knew. I backed down toward the creek, and started tearing out the ice with the backhoe, ripping huge sheets off the ground under the grass and snow. In 10 minutes, I had a trail down to the creek. The cows didn’t even let me get away from the dugway and surged around me on backhoe, literally dying of thirst. They piled in and just waded out into the warm water, put their heads down and drank deeply of the warm life-giving liquid.

I just sat in the hoe seat and watched as 250 thirst stricken bovines stormed back from the brink of death to life. As they finished, they immediately turned around and headed to the field. There was that green alfalfa hay, waiting, after all. I watched as all returned to eating, and normalcy. It was like nothing happened. Cow crisis averted.

Just before nightfall, I brought another ton bale of hay down to the girls. I was right on my weather forecast; the wind was picking up, and the sky was spitting snow. It could be bad tonight. The previous night’s bale was vaporized; there was only the memory reinforced by a stain of green dust on the packed snow where I windrowed it the night before. They had already turned to the tall grass and were happily eating that when I arrived.

In the drifting snow, I saw that the cows were like a dry sponge, rehydrated. Where they were skeletal and drawn looking this morning, they were now tight, full, and plump. They were grapes compared to raisins. Some relaxed next to the hay, chewing cud. Others were going down for another drink. Some were bedding down in the tall grass and brush for the night, safely out of the wind.

We lost no cows from the debacle. When springtime came, they all had babies that were normal and robust. It was one of those life lessons with low tuition.

Unfortunately, cow lessons aren’t all like that. Often, they don’t come cheap and they have a way of leaving deep tracks on one’s mind.

We’re continuously reminded in this business of the fragility of life. I vividly remember one winter when going over to bring a tool back to a rancher friend of mine. I pulled into the barnyard and there were dead calves everywhere. They had lost almost a quarter of their calves to a gut virus that was ripping through them. They were sleepless and catatonic when I found them in the calving barn; I saw nothing hopelessness in their eyes. The only reason they kept going was because of duty; they loved those cattle. They had poured their life into them, I mean their whole life. But in their hearts and minds, they had failed. Within the year, they sold their herd and left the business.

I recalled an old rancher my good friend Tim leased ground from. I spoke to him at Tim’s wedding as celebrants milled happily around us. When he learned I ran cattle, he thought he found a kindred spirit in a life hardened by loss. “If you’re gonna have livestock, yer gonna have deadstock,” he quipped with a wry half-grin.

Well, he was right. But the difference: we haven’t become hardened to it, and we’ll do everything in our power to prevent it. We’ve certainly had our share of wrecks where everything from weather to wolves rips life right out of our hands. Life is indeed fragile, but for that very reason, we are so grateful we have gotten to the point we are. I’m thankful for every day I can go through the beeves and see health, resilience, and vibrancy. They are better than they’ve ever been, I think, in part because of 25 years in Bovine University. They are patient teachers, thankfully, and quite forgiving. Those girls I almost killed delivered many years of healthy calves after the water debacle, never looking at me askance.

The only problem I have is that those cattle never get around to issuing me the diploma. I’d like to graduate, but they always say in their wordless way that there are more lessons out there. I think the land itself is in league with them on Glenn’s continual education degree. The older I get the more I realize how much more I need to learn.

But land and cattle are patient professors. And you are complicit in this education of Glenn. After all, you’re part of this too, and I have learned many lessons from my customer-partners as well. And every lesson learned improves our land, our cattle, and the beef we provide to you.

Thanks for being on this journey with us.
Happy Trails
Glenn, Caryl, Girls and Cowboys at Alderspring