If any child could have grown up on a family farm during the 30’s and yet not love most animals, I don’t understand them. I’ve loved them ever since I was old enough to recognize them. Each type of farm animal is unique in appearance, behavior, and attitude. And each animal within the same type, is also unique in those things. I soon learned to read most of them and to be able to detect their intentions. The dogs were way ahead of me when it came to my preference and I have come across very few of them that I didn’t like. I have been bitten, slightly, by three dogs in my life and two of them were my fault. The other was from a small dog that snuck up behind me and bit me on the heel as he approached his owner’s house. She didn’t hate me, she just warned me that she better not have bad ideas about her parents.
But this story is about calves. Beautiful lanky little calves. He was born with long, spindly legs that take about 24 hours to gather enough strength to walk or run safely. A shiny little flat nose like his mother’s, but much prettier. He comes into this world knowing exactly how to find his mother’s milk supply and it is this that dwells in his mind most of the time when he is very young. Cows and calves are docile creatures if they are approached and handled with care and concern. Ours were always easy to handle and returned a show of affection when treated like this.
The fact is that I have yet to find animals that do not respond to kind and loving treatment, even wild animals. I’ll admit there are plenty of wild animals I’ve never had close interaction with and some I’d really rather not try.
I didn’t give much thought to why our animals were so gentle and easy to handle at the time, but since I grew up, I now know it was because everyone who dealt with them cared about them and recognized it. We always try to raise enough calves and cows to provide us with a constant and adequate supply of milk and also to raise adequate bulls to provide us with beef throughout the year. We normally had 4 dairy cows and their calves were raised to sell, replace any aging dairy cows, or be slaughtered for meat. We also kept an adult bull for the riding service.
Newborn calves are normally somewhat skittish, until they have been handled and rubbed tenderly, hand-fed, etc. But they will soon get over it when they go through our normal routine. We never let our calves run with their mothers on the pasture, but instead kept them in their stall during the day until they started eating green food. Then we made rope halters out of a long rope and would lead them out of the pasture and barn to some grassy spot and tie them to a stake in the ground so they could graze during the day. This was a task I was normally assigned, mainly because I loved it and no one else was doing it. But it was an experience.
When he was probably 6 or 8 years old, he was a small dwarf and probably weighed no more than 40 or 50 pounds. When the calves were quite young, old enough to start eating grass, there was no problem. He had already brought them to the point of not being afraid, so putting the halter on them and leading them to the stake he had prepared was routine. But when they had put on 30 or 40 extra kilos and I hadn’t, things started to get exciting. Young calves love to run and when they are twice your weight, there is not much you can do about it. But I was barefoot and could fly with them most of the time, holding on to the rope with all my might. They would have learned the area we were going to by now and would hopefully slow down when we got there.
One day in particular that I remember, really the only real disaster that I can remember, the scenario similar to the last two sentences of the last paragraph. When I pulled the hatchling, stronger than me, out the door, she knew what she intended to do, so she flew, nearly knocking me down, but I held on for dear life. The area we were heading to was a country road a bit further down and at the beginning of the trail there was a slope about 20 yards downhill with gravel to prevent erosion. By the time we got to the hill and started down, I was pretty much airborne…taking about 3 or 4 yard stretches at each step. About the time we got to the bottom of the hill, I lost my balance and kicked up the gravel with my elbows and chest, losing my grip on the rope. Man, that hurts. As I started to gather my composure and try to get up, I was thinking… I wonder where that stinky calf went. He knew he was in no condition to chase her around the farm. But when I got up and looked up, there she was with her nose in my face, and you could almost read an apology in her expression. I took the rope and we walked calmly towards the bonfire.
Things like that are what made me love animals, I think. Even pigs and swine learn to know you and show you affection. The little pigs are too active and fast, you can hardly put your hands on them to pet them. But the older and fatter ones soon learn that you are the one rubbing and scratching them and will come stand next to you to see if you scratch them today. A somewhat strange phenomenon to me is that if you have a pig that is petty enough to let you scratch it, you can scratch it on the lower side of its side a few strokes and it will lie down and look like they are sleeping. Apparently they enjoy it more than most animals. But then again, almost all animals will appreciate rubbing and/or scratching.
Although some animals can be trained to do things they would not normally do, if left alone, the animals will be as God created them, doing exactly what He created them to do. Man is the only rebellious creature that He made.
