I was ugly when I was born. How ugly were
you? I was so ugly they had to tie my mother's legs together so I could
nurse! If you've ever grafted a calf you know just what I'm talkin'
about.
Graftin' calves. An unnatural
act. One of the more frustrating parts of calvin' season. You've got a
good (or not so good) heifer who lost her calf to calvin' difficulty,
scours, deep water, snow drifts, tractor tires, excitement, BVD or any
of a million or two reasons that we could all by name.
You
figger to graft another calf in its place from one of your many
sources: a twin, a dried up heifer, the sale barn, the local dairy,
Walmart or one of those late night television commercials that offers a
four-legged lizard to Guy-Ko you, tape you can plug your septic tank
with, or the pillow man to personally come to your home to fluff you up!
I
imagine since the time of Noah's Livestock Auction and Commission
Company, peddlers have been offering magical solutions that you can
sprinkle on the calf and the heifer's nose to mask the scent, different
formulae abound; musk from a rutting beaver, compost drops, eucalyptus
oil, limburger lotion or grizzly after shave. They all have one thing in
common: they smell like two dead carp left in a Hefty trash bag on a
warm Phoenix afternoon.
I've
tried rubbing the graft with the new mother's afterbirth. I tried the
ol' sheepherder trick of skinnin' the dead calf and tyin his hide around
the new one. I admit that trick always makes me feel sorry for both
calves. It certainly couldn't be too comfortable, not to mention it
would take both of 'em right off the best dressed list!
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