I was up at Willum’s farm doing some routine dairy work, the main job that morning was a cleansing. This is a particularly foul task. Once a cow has calved and the calf is up and about, she then pushes out the placenta, which has become detached. This normally happens less than 8 hours after calving, although it can be up to 24hours. Usually she will then eat the lot. It’s a useful evolutionary device – less smelly bloody mess about for the wolves to track you, and it’s a lot of good nutrition that would be a shame to waste. Sometimes after calving, the placenta does not come away and remains attached to the womb, especially if the birth was difficult or the cow has a metabolic issue. This is called retained foetal membranes. It leaves the cow with a load of tissue without a blood supply hanging from her vulva. Over the next few days, it starts to decompose, and the smell is pretty horrific.
At the time, the recommendation was to allow the tissue to rot for a few days to soften it up, then remove as much as possible without actively tugging or causing trauma to the uterus, and following it up with a hearty dose of antibiotics. This has been a staple of the rural vet’s workload for a hundred years and more. The recommendation now is that manual removal of the retained membranes is contraindicated – don’t do it, just snip off the worst of it, leave the rest alone and it will sort itself out in time. Unless the cow is sick, she doesn’t even get antibiotics.
But this was back then, when we were still removing the rotting membranes from inside cows, and that was what Willum had summoned me to do this morning. He greeted me enthusiastically, grinning and giggling from the start.
“I’ve got a right ripe one for you here, kept it special for you like”
“Aye, thanks for that, you’re a pal”
He walked a quiet Holstein Friesian into the handling area. She was a bonny cow, classic black and white markings, soft eyes, slavery nose and chin, and a deep lowing moo when you talked to her. There was a long twisted rope of flesh hanging out of her back end, flapping around her hocks. It smelled pretty bad from a distance.
“I’ve been letting it cook for a few days, get it good an ready!”
I donned two shoulder length plastic gloves on my right arm to protect me from both the bacteria and the smell. Rubbing some lubricant on my gloved arm, I handed Willum the manky tail to hold and pushed my hand in through the vagina and up into the uterus. Immediately a hot splash of foetid liquid poured out, spattering on my boots as I gagged and retched. Willum fell about laughing.
“You know Willum, you could do this yourself, you don’t need to be paying me to do it.”
“Are you joking, man? This is the best laugh ah get aal week, it’s priceless watching you an ya wee screwed up face hurling all ower the place. I wouldna miss it for the world!”
“You’re a real bastard, you know that?” I was assaulted by another wave of hot putrid decomposing flesh, and it was all I could do to hang on to my breakfast whilst clutching the handful of membrane I had secured. I eased it off the uterine wall, removed it, flung it on the floor and went back for more. I was very high up the womb now and was reaching for something at my very fingertips, my face and body pressed up against her rump as I stretched for an extra inch when suddenly she farted and shot a full stream of faeces directly into the side of my face and down my neck, inside my waterproofs. Willum collapsed to the ground and let go of the tail, which whipped me around the face. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t even stand up to help me. My lips were clamped shut, desperately trying to keep the muck out of my mouth. My ear was full of hot cowshit. I brought my left hand up and used the side of my finger to scrape everything clear of my mouth so I could breathe. Willum, dying of mirth managed to pass me a handful of paper towel, tears rolling down his cheeks, gasping for air between guffaws of laughter. I rubbed the worst off my face, still inside the cow up to my shoulder.
“You Bastard.” I was not impressed, which made it even funnier for him. He was trying to apologise, but still weak with laughter I could barely hear him wheezing out “Sorry, but…”
I finished up as quickly as possible and stood dejectedly in the yard. It was only lunchtime and I was filthy. Willum’s mother came out from the house, over to where we were standing.
“You’d better come in for a clean up and a bit o dinner, you’ve earned your bait the day lass!”
I kept a spare shirt in the car, so I put away my kit, stripped off as much as modesty allowed into a mucky pile on the ground behind the car, and headed into the house. The bathroom was basic and pretty ancient. There was brown shaggy carpet on the floor with a crusty path worn through it, a freestanding bath and a chipped pink sink boasting a sliver of gritty soap. I took off the rest of my filthy clothes and set to work trying to clean myself up as best I could. The soap was Cusson’s Imperial Leather, an old cracked impenetrable bar with sand wedged deep into the seams on the fissured surface. It was about 40% label, that rigid square they set into the branded bars. It wouldn’t lather in the hard water. I dried myself with a stiff, scratchy towel and put on my fresh shirt. I thought I looked okay given the circumstances. I gave my hand a quick test sniff and recoiled in horror. My whole arm was stinking.
I felt better after a proper cooked lunch; knowing how awful the job was going to be they had even made me some trifle. After a bit of joshing over the table, I made my way back to the surgery.
The nurses immediately threw me out the building; despite a full change of clothes and repeated scrubbings with surgical soap my warm skin was releasing the aroma of dead rotting flesh. I had muck stuck in the folds of my ear, and a smear of blood through my eyebrow that I had somehow missed. But I also wore a smile, because for all the hardships and mishaps, the gruelling work and truly awful smells, farm work has always filled me with joy.
