A Troubled Arrival For Baby Kip

My sons and I are vacationing on my parents farm Noergaard, in the top of Northern Jutland, Denmark, and I am really reminiscent of my childhood, as I see my sons experience the wonders of life on a farm. 

Yesterday my father had a lot of trouble with a cow that was having a calf. The calf had gotten stuck, and he seriously thought he was going to loose it. He ended up being able to push the one leg back, and pull out the calf with his truck. I know it sounds horrific, but he did what he had to do to save both the calf and the cow. As a kid I have actually had my hands inside the cow (because I was the smallest one there) in order to try to get the a calf's leg loose, while my dad and the vet was pulling in a rope tied around the legs of the calf) The cow Clare was a first time mom to be, and she must have been absolutely terrified.

Baby Kip came out alive to everyone's surprise, my dad had serious doubts about this little fragile calf, but out it came. Here it is one hour old.

The young cow Clare is licking her newborn Kip, and allthough it looks idyllic, you can stiil see the fear from the traumatic experience in her eyes.

Baby Kip is trying to get up on its feet for the first time, but it is still too weak, and it quickly gives up.

Baby Kip is only one day old, and already it has gotten itself into big and dangerous trouble. My dad had to go to a Christmas tree cutting seminar today about two hours away, so my sons and I went to go check on the new calfs (he got three yesterday after two months of getting no calfs).

We found baby Kip left all alone trapped inside a little triangle of electric fense, which my dad had made to protect a new tree that hehad planted earlier in the spring. 

Poor little scared, and once again traumatized, baby Kip, kept trying to get out of the trap, but as soon as it would try to go forward, it would get an electrical shock, which would make it back up into the other side of the electrical fence, and once again it would get shocked. I do not know how many times, it managed to get shocked, but I knew that I had to get in touch with my childhood knowledge of the animals. I got down on all four to be on the same level with the scared calf, so that I would not seem so huge and frightening. I was then able to get so close to Baby Kip that I could calm it down enough to stand still. 

I was trying to get Baby Kip to lay down, so that I could pull it out from under the electrical fence, but the poor fragile thing was so scared from all the choks, which it had already gotten that it keept trying to get up.

After several attempts, I was able to pull Baby Kip out from under the electrical fence, but the little thing was so scared and exausted that it took several hugs and a lot of love to get it to relax enough for it not to run off scared again.

Baby Kip is out in the free again, but it sure is a scared, lonely and traumatized little calf.

We finally found the rest of the hord, and now we had to get them all back together again.

We found Clare looking very desperate and lonely without her new calf.

We were able to get the hord closer to the calf, but I could not get them to go all the way to the poor thing, so we left it there hoping Clare would eventually locate her newborn and shower it with love.

When my dad came home this evening, he immediately went to check on them, and he found that Baby Kip and Clare were back together again safe and happy.