We Will Miss You Pippin

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about cow behavior and dispositions. I mentioned a very friendly cow named Pippin 767. She has always been my favorite cow. Always waiting by the gate just waiting to have me scratch her back and talk to her. She's never set the world on fire with how much milk she made but she always got pregnant and made enough milk to keep her around. Well last year she lost her calf at 5 months and was not making enough milk to really justify keeping her around. So instead of the usually fate of a cow in this situation we turned her into a donor cow. She had a surgery in which we put a rubber plug in her side to allow us to reach inside her rumen and get some of the juice out to put in a cow that has been sick. You see every cows rumen it is a fermentation vat with tons of little bugs that digest the hay and food. Sometimes when a cow is sick her rumen bugs die and without them they can't break down all the cellulose they eat. So in comes Pippin. We can take some of her rumen bugs and put them in the sick cow. That way the new bugs allow the cow to repopulate her rumen and hopefully save her live. Pippin was the perfect cow for this since she was so friendly. She saved many cows on our farm as well as a few cows on neighboring farms. Now that I've explained how important Pippin has become it is so sad for me to say that Pippin got very sick last week. The vet found a very large and painful kidney which is not a good sign. Weather it was kidney failure or cancer we will never know. She didn't suffer for very long which is the only way I would have her go. May you rest in peace Pippin. I know that you are all better now and that I will see you again someday. First Danny Boy and then Pippin. I hope that next week is better.