Em Nau Farm BLOG

Joy and Sorrow Sit Together

It has been a week of sorrow and joy at Em Nau farm. 

The joy came in the way of a little heifer calf, born to Daphne, last Monday 08 September 14.  Daphne had been struggling with the birth over the previous weekend, with her udder gorged to capacity she was having trouble walking.  Being novices when it comes to cow births – we had only experienced a couple on the farm and had only been present for one of these – we assumed that the trouble walking was due to the size of her udder. 



On Monday, after thinking that the birth would be at any moment all weekend, we were ready to call in the vet when Daphne started giving birth.  After about an hour we (and Daphne) were the proud parents of little Jenny.  We were pretty happy and Daphne looked relieved that the calf was finally out.  The calf took a little while to get its feet but once she was up she was walking around like a drunk, testing her new legs and seeing how far she could get from Mum before being summoned back.

Jenny had her first feed of the essential colostrum from Daphne, and Daphne gave Jenny a finishing clean to get the remaining gunk off.  Daphne then sat back down to rest. 

As Khalil Gibran once wrote …”joy and sorrow are inseparable … together they come and when one sits alone with you ….remember that the other is asleep upon your bed”

We thought nothing of Daphne resting so much over the next twenty four hours.  We assumed that due to the amount of time it took her from when we expected her to give birth to when she actually did that she was exhausted and was just getting her strength back.  Little did we know that sorrow was waking from its slumber and was about to descend on us with its dark vale. 

On Tuesday morning Daphne was still walking peculiarly so we got the vet to come up to have a look.  It turned out that Daphne had toxic mastitis, sometimes called black mastitis, and that it can kill in the matter of hours.  As the vet said she can be fine in the morning and dead by lunch.  The vet pumped her full of antibiotics and put a tube down into her stomach to give her fluids and told us that it was very unlikely that she would survive the night but he would come up on Wednesday to have another look.  Both Heather and I had a restless night worrying that each time we went down to check on her she would be dead. 

When the sun came up on Wednesday Daphne was still alive but unable to stand.  She was also grunting and had laboured breathing.  When the vet arrived he administered more fluids and told us that Daphne was a little better but still only had a 20% chance of survival.  Once again Wednesday night was a restless night for both of us.

On Thursday, with Daphne alert but unable to stand, we decided that it would be best to put her out of any pain she might be experiencing.  With the vet, his students and Heather there were five people around Daphne trying to get her to stand, but she was just too weak. You see if she was unable to stand it would lead to further complications like wasting muscles and further infections.  The vet administered the euthanasia drug and within minutes Daphne had passed.

You never know how much you love an animal until the moment of separation.  Daphne was a beautiful cow and so placid.  We never had a problem, temperament wise, with her and she was also most affectionate.

As we sat reflecting on Daphne’s short time with us we began to question what we could have done to prevent what eventuated.  Should we have called the vet on the Friday when we thought she was having trouble calving, could we have prevented the mastitis in some way, should we have tried to save her the way we did or should we have let her go when the vet was there on the Tuesday.  We probably knew it was very slim that she would come back to full health but the guilt we would have carried if we hadn’t tried to save her would have been with us for a lot longer I think.  In the end both Heather and I can console ourselves that Daphne had a good life at Em Nau Farm, one full of love, plenty of cuddles and pats, plenty of brushings when she was being milked and plenty of room to roam around.

If farm animals go to heaven then I know someday, we’ll run into each other again, I just know it but at the moment we can only remember what a great animal Daphne was.

We hope you RIP Daphne.

Until next time remember to live your dash.