“Wey hinny, it’s Darren up at Shielings, me Dad’s away on holiday an I’m looking after the beasts an there were this calving and it was reet difficult mind, an I think I might hae brocken it’s leg when it came oot an oh ahm gonna be sick lass, an I’m so sorry but ah dunno what to do. Me Dad’ll be ower upset. What am ah ganna dae? Can you come?”
I’d visited Bobby’s farm a few times, up at the far North reach of the practice, well off the beaten track. The nearest village had one of those names that you can only pronounce if you’ve lived there all your days. I always timed my visits to coincide with lunchtime, partly due to the distance and timing to get back for afternoon surgery, partly due to Carol’s spectacular lunches. She was a quiet, serious woman in stark contrast to Bobby’s gregarious nature– especially when there were ladies to charm. A visit from us usually involved some pretty heavy banter and leg pulling whilst we got the job done. He liked to tell dirty jokes that would leave me lost for words, and watch my reaction. I never went into the house if Carol wasn’t home.
This time, Bobby and Carol were away off to the sunshine, leaving their son to run the place. I didn’t really know him, but the word at the mart was that he was great with machinery, but not much of a stockman. This morning he crossed the yard to meet me, visibly distressed.
“Ah didn’t mean it an ah don’t know what happened, yon big calf got stuck and I had to jack it oota her. But now it winna stand an ah think it’s leg’s brocken…”
I got him to lead me to the calf, still damp from birth, held in a pen on the concrete whilst the cow looked on through the gate, waiting in the deep straw. On clinical exam, three legs seemed okay but the front left was definitely out of sorts. The bones of the foot were not sitting in the correct place – the fetlock was dislocated. Darren had turned away and looked like he was about to throw up as I wiggled the hoof. I realised I knew what had happened, and thought I’d better fix the cause before it happened again. There was no point in giving him a hard time, it was an honest mistake made from ignorance rather than malice.
A calving jack is a clever little bit of engineering designed to help you manually pull a calf from a cow. It’s a long ribbed metal bar with a bracket at the top at right angles to make a capital letter T, the bracket sitting against the cows rump. Ropes are attached to the feet of the calf, and hooked on to a travelling section which gets cranked up the length of the long rod, easing the calf out a tiny bit at a time, pulling first the right leg then left as you work the jack handle. It wiggles the calf out, and has made calving an awful lot easier. There are a few pitfalls though, one of which is that attaching the ropes below the knuckle of the fetlock means that that the weak joint is put under a lot of strain, and it is relatively easy to pull it apart, dislocating the foot.
“When you put the ropes on the feet for the jack, it’s a bit more secure and a wee bit safer to make your slip knot above that knuckle joint. You get a better grip and the bones are stronger there” He nodded vigorously.
“Ah’ll nivver dae that again. Will we have to shoot him? He’s a reet grand muckle calf an all. Ah cannut believe it.”
“Well, he’s still pretty fresh and bendy, I’d like to give something a try rather than just give up on him”
I went to the car and brought out what I needed to make a “stookie” or plastercast. My plan was to get the bones back in the right place and hold them there for a couple of weeks. A bit of manipulation and the foot made it back into the right place, ready to be held firm. I soaked the plaster impregnated bandages in warm water and wrapped the leg up snugly, making sure to extend up beyond the next normal joint for support. It wasn’t the best looking plastercast I’ve ever done, I just prayed it would be enough.
I heard no more from the farm, but I was so caught up in other work that I didn’t have a chance to devote much thought to the calf. It was several weeks later when Bill came into the surgery and announced that Bobby had called and would like me to go out and take off the cast. I set off on the hour long drive up to the farm on the moor.
Bobby was in hearty mode when I arrived, full of the joys of spring. I was greeted with hug and much thanks for taking care of things whilst they were gone. Never one to accept compliments easily, I deflected it somewhat whilst we got on the quad bike and drove off across the fields.
The tiny baby calf was now a strapping fit beast, out and about in the field with it’s pals. The plan was to get alongside, hold it by the head, lay it down on the grass and remove the cast – we had brought some blades and a hacksaw with us. There were no handling facilities anywhere near where the cows were grazing. Bobby got close, stopped the bike and ambled up to the calf, hirpling with the classic farmer’s limp that comes from wrecked hips. As he drew level with the calf, its eyes flared and suddenly it shot off. Bobby lunged after it but it was long gone, leaving him to sail through the air and land on the soft ground with a thud. The calf had raised its tail up in the air and was belting along, clearly not troubled by the foot any more. A new plan was needed. We took to the quad bike.
Our new plan was ambitious - Bobby was to get as close as possible with the bike, whilst I hung off the side. When we got within touching distance, I was to leap off the back and catch the calf by the head. Bobby had misgivings about letting me do that, but I reassured him I was fairly hardy and would be just fine. So off we went.
It took a fair while to get close enough to the alarmed calf to even attempt to catch him. The first couple of tries I was almost ready to leap when he would suddenly change course and disappear at right angles. Then I had a go where I jumped a little too early and ended up sprinting along in my wellies to try and outrun him– I lost. I realised I was going to have to really go for it. We got close, I leapt and secured my arms in a big bearhug cum headlock around his neck. But he didn’t stop. He kept running, full tilt across the field with me attached, digging my trailing toes in, trying to use my weight as a brake. There was mud and cowshit everywhere as I skated across the pasture. I looked back and Bobby was trying to catch up on foot, wheezing like a rickety old horse.
“GET THE BIKE!!!” I yelled across the field.
I managed to get my feet out in front of me, really dug in ith my heels and felt the pace slow. Gradually he started to wobble. I took my chance, changed my grip, turned his head towards me and with judicious use of leverage, cowped him onto his side on the grass. Grabbing a foreleg so he couldn’t get up and run off again, I shifted my weight onto his neck and waited for reinforcements.
The bike came roaring up behind me, Bobby wheezing and laughing and shouting all at once.
“Bloody hell, where did you learn to do that! You really are a tough little bugger, aren’t you?!”
I didn’t have any spare breath to reply for a while. Eventually I coughed out the answer– I was the full back for the ladies rugby team at Uni and pulled in a pro tug of war team.
Whilst Bobby held the back legs to stop me from getting a kicking as well for my troubles, I removed the cast. It was a long and slow process, not helped by the conditions or the fact that I was now totally shattered, but little by little the plaster started to fold away from the cut I was making, and reveal a skinny but healthy leg underneath. There were a few places where the cast had rubbed at the skin, but they would heal quickly now that they were out in the open air. The joint itself felt pretty stable, and more or less flexed the way it should.
Swiping back the hair that was sweat-plastered to my forehead, I sat back on the balls of my feet.
“Let’s let him up slowly and see what happens”
He wasn’t interested in slowly. As soon as his feet were released he rocketed forward, nearly flattening me in the process, and galloped across the field.
“100% cure! You know that costs extra, right?” I grinned. For once, I had the upper hand at Bobby’s.
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