Between Panic and Praise

Yesterday was a wild ride.

The kind of rollercoaster you never wanted to get on in the first place. The kind where you’re screaming to be let off, your stomach is somewhere up near your throat, and no matter how badly you want it to stop, all you can do is hold on and try not to throw up.

While keeping a watchful eye on mama and her brand-new calf, most of my attention—and my heart—was focused on our severely ill goat. Watching her fade was heartbreaking. We gave her medicine. We prayed. We hoped. And we waited.

All the while, something else was quietly worrying me.

We never once saw the calf nurse.

He slept. A lot. But newborns sleep a lot… right? This is our first calf, and I didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t. I told myself not to panic.

That worked until late afternoon.

When I tried to rouse him, he felt… off. Too lethargic. I put my finger in his mouth, expecting a suckle reflex.

Nothing.

That’s when the dread set in.

My husband and I tried everything we could to get him to nurse. He had no interest. I sent my husband to the farm supply store for a calf bottle while I milked colostrum from his mama. We tried the bottle.

Nothing.

We tried again. And again.

Still nothing.

The clock was ticking. If a calf doesn’t get colostrum within the first few hours of life, it can be a death sentence—and by then, it had been nearly eight hours since we’d discovered him.

We called the vet.

Yes, she could come. After hours. With an additional charge. And after hearing the situation, she gave us about a 50 percent chance of survival. She was not optimistic.

By the time she arrived, the temperature outside had dropped, so we had moved the calf indoors to keep him warm and dry. After examining him, she said it sounded like he had fluid in his lungs—and that we may have gotten some milk down the wrong tube when trying to bottle-feed him. That meant pneumonia. And likely death.

Then she tubed him. And some of the colostrum went into his lungs. I felt like we were going from bad to worse.

Poor little guy was so weak

She gave him an antibiotic injection, some B vitamins, and told us we’d need to tube-feed him every two hours through the night. (I cannot adequately describe how terrifying that sounded.) Then she left.

A friend came over with some homeopathic remedies to try and revive the calf, and it seemed to help a little. She stayed with us and sat with us, praying over that tiny calf.

Later that night, another friend arrived—he grew up on a cattle ranch and carries a quiet kind of wisdom that only comes from lived experience.

We told him everything and admitted that we didn’t think there was much hope.

He said he’d show us how to tube-feed the calf so we’d feel confident doing it ourselves.

Instead… he did something else entirely.

He roughed that calf up a bit. Tough love style. He made him wake up. Like—stop heading toward the light, little guy, and come back—wake up.

Then he scooped him up, carried him outside into the freezing night, set him down next to his mama, and told him to nurse. And then—hand to God—he started mooing.

I don’t speak cow, so I have no idea what was said. But it worked. The calf latched on to his mama like he knew exactly what he was doing.

Hallelujah! He's nursing!

He nursed. And nursed. On both sides. When he was finished, he laid down with a full belly and a whole new lease on life.

I cried. Of course I did.

After debating whether to bring him back inside or leave him with his mama, we chose to trust nature. We piled fresh straw all around him—and on top of him—to keep him warm through the night.

All tucked in for the night

Exhausted, my husband and I finally collapsed into bed. I set an alarm for two hours later so we could go check on him, just to be sure he was still warm and breathing and alive.

But for that moment, relief washed over us.

We had done everything we could. The rest was in God’s hands.

God is good. All the time.

And even if this little calf hadn’t made it, God would still be good—and I would still praise His name.

Tomorrow would bring whatever it brought. And if it brought more chaos… well, at least the calf knew how to nurse now.

And then, we slept.