If you’re a dairy farmer, the title of this blog is almost sacrilegious, especially when you find out it was said by my vet. As dairy farmers, we’re raised knowing that you never give up. It’s never really said out loud, but you just intrinsically know that you’re meant to put that calf’s health above your own. It’s the dairy farmer way. Then, if the calf still doesn’t make it, you wallow in your guilt. Because it’s obviously something you did or didn’t do that made you lose that calf, right? Logically, your brain tells you that every single calf doesn’t live, but your heart tells you it’s your life’s purpose to make sure they do.
In the last year, the more I’ve thought about these words, the more true they seem. Accepting that I can’t save every calf has made the guilt with each death less crippling and the anxiety with each sick calf less distressing. Don't misunderstand me, I still do everything I can to save them, but I’ve become more accepting of the inevitable end of a few. It’s the calves I’ve lost that have helped me get there.
For example, once a year we seem to have a calf that is just off. Last year, it was Sparrow. She started off strong, drinking every drop of milk in every bottle; then, she got pneumonia. No big deal! It’s a one treatment kind of problem. A few days of hard breathing and they usually recover nicely. And so, she did . . .the first time. For the next six months, we treated her another five times. We even had the vet check her during our monthly herd visits on three or four different occasions. On the last herd check, I told the vet her back story, then the vet listened to the calf’s lungs and told me to put her down. Her lungs were weak, and our vet didn’t believe she’d make it in the end. Of course, I didn’t listen. Sparrow was on an upswing, and I couldn’t bring myself to put down a happy calf. We kept her in the calf barn a bit longer, then graduated her through the ranks. I was feeling pretty smug about it, until the day we found Sparrow dead in a stall with no explanation.
Sparrow wasn’t the first and probably won’t be the last calf like that, and it’s hard not to wonder if I could’ve done more, even knowing I did everything I knew to do and everything the vet told me to do. The bottom line is this isn’t a hospital full of people; it’s a dairy farm. I will never not try to save them, but without million-dollar equipment and lifesaving $20,000 surgeries, we can’t save every calf. Because maybe they aren’t all meant to be saved. And if that’s true, that’s not a fight any of us can win.
The author dairies in partnership with her parents and brother at Spruce Row Farm in Pennsylvania. Jessica is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, and since 2015, she has been active in promoting dairy in her local community. You can find her and her 250 Jersey cows on Facebook at Spruce Row Dairy or on Instagram at @seejessfarm.
