We love our little herd of Texas Longhorns. Over the centuries natural selection has created a unique breed of bovine. Like most who are familiar with the breed we appreciate the Longhorns for a number of reasons - their ease of calving, hardiness, and thriftiness. However, above all we appreciate them for their strong mothering instinct and their ability to protect and raise a calf. It is this strong mothering characteristic, a weird set of circumstances, and my slow thinking, that recently created an incident on our ranch after which my wife insisted I put a sticky note with the letter S written on it, right on the middle of my forehead. Yes, the S stands for “STUPID.”

The two main characters in this story are “Woolly” and “Miracle.” Woolly is a 7 year old Longhorn-Highland cross cow. The Highland influence has resulted in her having a longer haired coat than her herd mates. This, plus the fact that she has a “don’t mess with me attitude” reminded us of a woolly mammoth, hence the name “Woolly.” The other main character is a 3 year old brown and white brockle coloured heifer. She was born during a vicious late Spring snowstorm, and it was a miracle she survived, hence the name “Miracle.” I am sure you other Longhorn owners also have flashes of brilliance when you name some of your own cows.

The saga started last Friday. Barbara and I needed to go into Town to get some odds and ends and pay a few bills. We came back from the shopping trip in the early afternoon only to find a little white calf, obviously only an hour or so old, stumbling around in the middle of the pasture, and calling pitifully for her mum. The obvious question, why is she alone? Usually, a bawling calf results in a very hurried response from its mother. This was a bit of a puzzle. However, based on the breeding date, we were pretty sure the mum had to be Woolly. We noticed Woolly was with the rest of the cows who were grazing laconically a good two hundred yards from the baby. So, in an effort to get the baby mothered up I transported it on the quad down to the herd and placed it a few feet in front of Woolly. While I was at the front end of Woolly, Barbara was at the back end to check for signs of birthing. Woolly looked clean, but she did have a big bag. We stepped back to watch and see whether Woolly would claim the baby. She didn’t, in fact she showed no interest in it at all, and neither did any of the other cows. So where was the new mum? This had us puzzled. We counted the cows, and we were one short. The one that was missing was a heifer, and we knew which one. It was Miracle. We started to speculate why Miracle had abandoned the baby. Maybe it was coyotes, maybe she had been bullied by another cow, maybe she had a momentary chemical imbalance. It was all speculation and none of the theories eased our mind.

Over the years we have had the situation with other breeds of cattle where, on the odd occasion, a heifer has dropped a calf then taken off, not wanting anything to do with the baby. A mother with no mothering instinct seems to be an abomination, and we always culled those type heifers. However we now had Texas Longhorns, and so were in shock to realize we had one that was a bad mother. I had bragged many times about the wonderful attributes of the Longhorn, especially the maternal instincts, and now Miracle had made me a liar.

Our home quarter, where we calve out the herd, is about 40% bush, so there are plenty of places for a critter to hide. From Friday afternoon until it got dark, around 10 p.m. in the evening, we searched for Miracle. We called the neighbours, all to no avail. Miracle was nowhere to be found. The longer she was missing the more annoyed we got, and the uglier the names that I silently called her. Besides searching we also needed to look after the abandoned calf. We all know how important it is that a newborn calf gets its first milk (colostrum).We took her into the stable and placed her on the straw in the box stall. A cute little white calf with shiny dark eyes and eyelashes some women would die for. A little princess in drab surroundings. Obviously we named her “Princess.” Fortunately we had some commercial colostrum handy and we fed the baby twice, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. She obviously had not sucked her mother at birth, and we were glad to have that colostrum available.

Finally, on Saturday afternoon, around 2 p.m. Miracle came out of her hiding place in the bush and rejoined the herd. With judicious use of a grain bucket we managed to capture a bunch of the cows, including Miracle, in the corral behind the stable. We then sorted her off. And now came the challenge as to how to get her mothered up to the calf that she had so wickedly abandoned. Fortunately we have a maternity pen in the corral. Since we have had Longhorns we have rarely had to use it but now it was going to be put to good use. We restrained Miracle in the maternity pen, tied up her left hind leg so she could not kick, then gently eased Princess to the udder. The reaction was violent. Miracle did not want to be sucked, and with vicious intent tried desperately to kick the baby. Kicking the baby would have been bad enough, but I also did not want to lose my front teeth. Dentists are expensive these days. However I have done the “tie up the leg trick” quite a few times so we managed to let the baby suck with no harm to any of us. I told Barbara confidently that a couple of times feeding like this and Miracle would gladly accept her baby and all would be well. After all I had always been successful at this mothering-up procedure, so why not now. So on Saturday we went through the tie-up leg routine twice, then three times on Sunday, and then three times on Monday. Even after two and a half days of forced mothering Miracle was still violently trying to kick us out of the ballpark, and my confidence was beginning to wane. This damn Longhorn sure was stubborn and stupid.

Then, in the early hours of Tuesday morning something happened which turned our world upside down. At 1:30 in the morning the dogs, which are kenneled close to the house, erupted with violent barking. I stumbled out of bed and made my way to the window. In the half light I could see what seemed to be a boxer type dog walking around outside the corral. Inside the corral Miracle was running up and down obviously agitated by the presence of the strange dog. I hurriedly got dressed and ran outside to chase the intruder away. Oops, it is not a dog it is a little two to three day old brown calf ! Where on earth did this one come from ? So I caught it and took it into the stable. Now we had two little calves in the box stall. Barbara noticed it was really gaunt and so took off for the house to get some colostrum made up so we could feed our new addition. While she was away in the house I could hear Miracle outside still running around, and still obviously in a very agitated condition. Now, in the best of times my brain is not that fast, but in the early morning hours its deductive powers are pretty slow. However, by the time Barbara had returned to the stable I had a strong sense that this new baby had something to do with Miracle. So, we took the little brown calf and instead of feeding it the colostrum I took the chance of just pushing it out the stable door into the corral. Miracle came flying across, and with lots of mooing sounds immediately licked the baby, she took ownership of it, and stood there with pure contentment on her face while the little brown calf went to the udder and sucked voraciously. We stood back in awe and amazement. This was obviously her calf, and Princess was not!

After the amazement came shame and guilt. We had subjected Miracle to all the stress and strain of forced mothering with the wrong baby for two and a half days. She was not the stupid one - I was! Also, her real baby, which she had obviously hidden in the bush on the Friday and Saturday, had been alone out there for two and a half days without sustenance or protection. Somehow that little critter had found its way out of the tangled bush and undergrowth and had traveled at least ¼ mile in the darkness to find its mum. There was hair missing on the top of the hip of the little brown calf and scratch marks. The coyotes must have about got it by the time it reached the corral and the dogs’ violent barking in the early morning hours all now made sense. The dogs probably saved its life. We cleaned off the scratch marks and put Polysporin on the wound which has since healed nicely.

But what about Princess? Who was her mum? Who had abandoned her? The answer came after we had released Miracle and her real calf back to the herd and we now had some time to focus on the rest of the cows. Some serious scrutinizing of the herd paid off and the answer came quickly. We normally sell our calf crop prior to the next calving season, but this past year we had retained a handful of last year’s steer calves with the intent of selling them as long yearlings, or possibly butchering them as two year olds. Last Fall we had weaned them over a period of 6 weeks, and returned them to the herd. However we forgot how strong that mothering instinct is, especially with Longhorns, and it did not take us long to catch Woolly’s year old steer calf sucking on his mum! Then there was light! Woolly had obviously calved on the Friday, and immediately her yearling had started to suck, and as a result the new born, Princess, was rejected. At the same time Woolly calved, Miracle was having her baby someplace in the bush. The little brown calf must have been well looked after by Miracle during the Friday and Saturday because it had enough sustenance to keep it going without food until it found its mum in the early hours of Tuesday morning. These Longhorns are tough!

So the present situation is this. The handful of steers took a trip toTown and are now owned by someone else. Princess is happy being a pail bunter and becoming quite a pet. Meanwhile Miracle and her calf are doing really well. In fact Miracle is often the babysitter for a bunch of calves as the mums go off and graze. So, as a result of all this I can brag even more about my Longhorns. However, I have a difficult time looking Miracle in the eye, and I am getting a little bit tired of having to wear this post-it note, which has a big S written on it, on my forehead.

Terry Wildman, Wildman Ranches
May 2007