This three-part installment follows Donna as she and the surrounding community try to solve what has killed her calf. Donna and her wife farmed in Folles, France, with their two children.
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Friday
I drove down to the lake at first light, walked into the woods, and… they were empty. I smiled with relief. No one had died in place, sick and cold. No one had been killed by a predator. Turns out they’d gotten up early, like it was the day after Christmas, and headed up to the hay bale. I drove there next and doled out the morning’s alfalfa pellets.
On my way back, I noticed Scaredy’s body had been removed from the straw. It was 9:30. Had Atemax come? No one asked me for the bovine passport. Or did something else remove his body? Patrice had expressed concern that a dog or fox would disturb the carcass if I left it by the side of the road.
“But that’s what the online instructions say to do,” I told him.
He acknowledged my comment and then reiterated his suggestion to load Scaredy back into the wheelbarrow and keep him inside for the weekend if Atemax didn’t come on Friday. He even offered to help me. I respected Patrice but no way in hell was I gonna move that body again.
I spent the day clearing and cleaning the concrete building, adding straw to the floor, hay to the feeders, and water to a barrel. I erected a variety of temporary fencing to separate the girls from the boys, then Uno and Goat Boy from the other calves. I lured them away from the herd with alfalfa pellets, which are apparently like crack cocaine for cows.
I left Uno and Goat Boy at the bottom of the field in an alley that led toward the concrete building. Normal cow behavior is to walk forward while grazing, so I figured they’d make their own way up in an hour or so. But they were both still at the bottom of the field hours later, so Wendy and the kids herded them toward a paddock attached to the concrete building. Eventually they made their own way into the paddock and I was able to close the gate behind them. Now all we had to do was wait for André to come and tell us what we should do.
I checked on the boys again shortly before 5pm. I needed them to be in the building when André arrived so he could sequester them as needed. But they made it easy for me–they had already entered the building and put themselves to bed. I pet each one in turn and told them help was on the way, that we’d know what to do soon.
Five o’clock came and went. Then 5:30. Appointment times were always an estimate. I assume it’s because he never knew for sure how long something was going to take. André never rushed us, so he probably didn’t rush anyone else either. Plus, he was clearly squeezing us in at the end of the day.
He arrived shortly before 6:00. As he pulled in the driveway I saw he was wearing a mask. So I told him he could drive to the concrete building if he wanted, then I grabbed a mask from the house and met him down there. I explained my concerns, particularly in light of Scaredy’s death, and told him I hadn’t administered a dewormer.
André examined the calves and took their temperature. “This one has a bit of a fever,” he said, referring to Uno. “They do seem depressed.”
I told him Uno’s gut was making a lot of noise (think rumbly tummy), and that I had recently begun giving them alfalfa pellets to help ensure rumen activation.
“That’s probably why,” André said. “It’s too much. Stop the pellets for a few days and then you can start again with a little.”
Dammit. I was trying to solve a problem, not create one. “Is hay sufficient to stimulate the rumen?” I asked.
André confirmed. “Oui, c’est suffit.”
“Do they look thin to you?” I asked.
“No, their weight is normal,” he assured me.
I asked André what he thought the problem might be.
“They might have a parasite but I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s possible they have the flu.”
There was no “Yes, they’re definitely sick” or “It’s a good thing you called.” But still, I was glad he had come. It made me feel better.
André gave Uno and Goat Boy a deworming injection for good measure, along with an antibiotic and anti-inflammatory to help relieve the flu symptoms.
“Take their temperature again in three days and send a note to the office to let me know how they’re doing,” he advised. “Anything above 39.1°C is a fever.”
I repeated the number back to him and he repeated it back to me. Got it. Even so, I knew I’d end up Googling “normal temperature for a cow” later anyway.
“If they’re better in 10 days I’ll come back and give them a flu vaccination,” Andre said. “If not, give them 5mL each of this anti-inflammatory subcutaneously.” He drew 10mL of a bright yellow liquid into a syringe. “Half each,” he said, “just squeeze the skin of their shoulder.”
“Can you show me?” I asked him. I wasn’t confident I’d do it right based only on a verbal description.
“Oui,” he answered, then walked over to Goat Boy, used all four of his fingers to pinch the loose skin of Goat Boy’s right shoulder against his thumb, then mimicked the action of inserting the needle down into the pinched skin. “Half the syringe.”
That’s not at all how I would’ve done it. I would’ve tried to slide the needle in an almost-parallel fashion under his skin to administer the shot. I was glad he showed me. And I hoped they would be better so I wouldn’t have to do that to them. I was already a bit concerned about holding them still while inserting a digital thermometer into their butt holes. André made it look easy, but he made everything look easy.
He saw the binder I had left open on the tailgate of the Traxter and took it as his cue to complete and sign the carnet sanitaire–a log book of all vet visits and medication. Before he left, I inquired about the well-being of his family, particularly in light of COVID.
“My daughter is at home with the virus right now,” he said.
“Is she alright?”
“Yes, she’s asymptomatic so everything’s fine,” he answered. I was extra glad I’d decided to grab my mask from the house when I saw him wearing his.
André pulled away as I closed the binder and the sky darkened. For the first time in three days, I was finally able to relax. I was not a crappy cow keeper. Their rumens had been fine, their forage was fine. My calves were not deathly ill. Even so, everyone now had abundant access to hay and our two potentially-sick calves had received medical attention. No one else should die.
Scaredy’s death is still a mystery to me. OFB closed the case a few months later and sent me a letter saying their analysis determined he had died from internal bleeding caused by blunt force trauma. They said one of the other cows probably did it to him. But I don’t buy it. Aggression wasn’t a problem in my herd and while Wicket had her assholey moments, she never injured anyone, and there was always plenty of room for the boys to move out of the way.
Wolves have since been confirmed in Haute-Vienne, so my guess is that a wolf startled the herd and Scaredy was injured during the panic, then lay down with everyone else to sleep for the night and didn’t wake up. I’ll never know for sure. But what I do know, with absolute certainty, is that we had support in our community. Our problem became a shared problem. Despite my inexperience, my commitment to farming in a way that was different from the norm, and our inability to communicate well, we were accepted in Folles.
Back in Los Angeles, when Wendy and I first shared our nascent plans, friends inquired about the culture of the French countryside. What were we getting ourselves into? Would we be welcome or seen as outsiders? Would we encounter discrimination and homophobia? They were valid questions whose answers could only emerge with experience.
Yes, we were seen as outsiders, because we were outsiders. “So,” the director of the local school remarked in a “let me get this straight” tone when we first met: “You lived in Los Angeles and decided to move to Folles?” A town with fewer than 500 inhabitants, nestled in the heart of Haute-Vienne, wasn’t accustomed to attracting same-sex couples from America with two adopted children, three senior dogs, and cattle ranching aspirations.
We were clearly transplants but were never treated like weeds. We were observed, checked on, and cared for during our four years in the commune. While we cultivated relationships and did our best to return the favor, neighbors like Vanessa, Yohann, Patrick, Christophe, and Patrice all helped us grow. They freely shared their knowledge, their advice, their humor, their core selves. We may have arrived in Folles as foreigners, but we left as full-fledged farmers.
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Learn more about Donna on our Contributors’ Page.
(Photo by the author)
