Diane L. Dishman's Blog . . .

It's been awhile since I updated this blog. I'll try to be more faithful to do that now.

Wed. I'll begin riding cattle pens over every morning for nine weeks. The cattle get sick when they've been through the stress of being shipped a long way on trucks all cooped up in close quarters with strange cattle. Kinda like kids tend to get sick more often when they first begin to get around lots of other kids. It's my job to spot the calf as soon after he begins to feel bad as possible. Unlike people, when a calf gets sick he can die with pnemonia in just days and he can't tell you when he feels bad. You have to really pay attention and know what signs to look for.

Our hired hand, Mike R. will help me pin the calves I decide to doctor that day. We have a veternarian that oversees the medicating plans. Then we'll get the calves up into the lot and into the chute so that we can give them a bolus (pill) or injection as needed. We always keep a medicine card on each sick calf, and use several colors of colored chalk to mark them in such a way that we can tell what day of the week the calf was doctored on and how many times he's been in the sick pen. Each calf stays in the sick pen three days and is medicated twice while there if needed before being turned back out into the waiting trap (pen) with the rest of the cattle.