My new calf!

To start out this post, I will go back 4 days to when this whole "calf thing" happened.
Last Saturday, about 12:30pm, Susie and I were cleaning horse stalls. They were REALLY bad! so it took a while. anyway, I went on our tractor/lawn mower type thing, and dumped all that horse manure into our compost pile. while i was sitting on the lawn mower, I saw a black lump through our neighbors barbed wire fence. I was at first thinking that a calf was just sleeping, but as i drove closer to that barbed fence It look dead! I was in panic and told Susie to "Run for her life!" to get Kevan, (i am not aloud in the neighbors pasture without Kevan) so, Kevan came, and went to go ask mom if he could go through all the nasty barbed wire to go see if the calf was really dead. he went through it, and yelled, "its a Dog!" i was in Evan more panic. "Whats wrong with it!" i yelled. Kevan came back to the fence because he didn't want it to hurt him. *smile* he told me it it was really bad of, and then i wanted to go look myself. i went through that AWFUL fence getting pricked a hundred times, and went about ten feet closer to it than Kevan had. it was not a dog, it was a baby Angus calf, only less than a week old. it was near starving because it looked SO weak! I ran back to our side of the fence and told mom and dad. dad went to get whole milk at the grocery store an hour later, after we had done a bunch of calls. i used a tiny little kitten milk re-placer bottle, that we had used on our bunnies. luckily it came with a big nipple, so it could, "kinda" work. i fed him three that evening. I worried about him a lot that night, hoping and praying he wouldn't get eaten, oh yeah, and that i could keep him, i LOVE him!


The next morning, i got up early and fed all our gazillion animals before I went through the fence.
he was right where I had left him the day before, except not as weak. i ran into the house, grabbed the bottle, and managed to make him eat 11 tiny bottles, which is about a quart. he was being stubborn at first, but as soon as he liked the taste he wanted LOTS more...
that evening, the calf's mother had come back, it stayed with it all night. i had Evan taken a picture:

she looked okay, and i went to bed not worrying as much.
The next, "Big Day" was the morning I went out to feed him his quart, except, found the mother half dead. I ran inside and Kevan came with me this time to see if it was really dead. after it rolled its eyes and kicked a few times, it quivered and than lay motionless.
there, the mother dead, a weak calf, no calf bottle, and the owners not calling us back, we were STUCK.
that afternoon, i went out to feed him his second quart of milk, when four people came next to me and the calf asking a lot of questions, i told them the mother was dead, and they looked shocked.
Mrs. Kelly and I went over to the dead mother and she told me it had retained placenta coming out of her. i saw it and went and looked closer. We walked back to the other people, and Mrs. Kelly said she was going to call some ranchers to come and take the calf somewhere they can care for it. I told her my dad was picking up a calf bottle today, and she said I didn't have the right supplies and stuff.
I told her I would get my mom, she said to ask her if they could use our driveway to get a tractor and take the calf over the fence. i went and got mom and told her there were 4 people who wanted to talk to her. we went back to the fence, and mom said that Kevan and Justan were going to move our trailer to make a path for the tractor. I went back inside knowing that it was the last time i would see him again, i prayed so much asking God to send a miracle so i could somehow, someway keep him.
I did not want to see them take it away, so i stayed inside. but they never came. christian came in and told me they came but Mrs. Kelly was not there. I went outside and saw that nobody but some kids and a lady were there. they were all taking pictures of the calf and asking if they could "keep it"
the lady said no.
about an hour later, mom said that our neighbor called dad and said they want to keep the cow in our barn, I was SO excited! I ran outside, and went through the barbed wire, and we waited for the tractor to come. It did, but not as I thought it would...
there was a white truck carrying 5 or 6 kids, a lot of adults and a big tractor all coming to the fence. the kids jumped out of the truck and rushed through the barbed wire to the poor surrounded, helpless calf. a teenager who acted snotty picked the calf up, and into the front bucket loader.
the tractor carried the calf all way into Wyatt's stall. the kids were already picking a name, they picked
"Ferdinand!" i hated that name right from the start. because it was based on a movie about a black bull. yeah, right. that name was never going to go near him! i quickly had already given him a perfect name on day 1. "Stormy night." Mr. Paul, our neighbor told us that we now have a cow. he was taking to Mrs. Kelly on the phone telling her that, "are you trying to get ownership of him? they found it, they can keep it!"
unfortunately the story thickens with Mrs. Kelly, because she was driving for five hours looking for "goat milk, colostrum and fresh cow milk. after everyone left. Mrs. Kelly came back with two girls, one my age who was snooty looking, because she kept frowning a lot. and the other was 3 or 4.
Mrs. Kelly came up and asked us if we wanted to take care of it. i was eagerly nodding.
but she told us, "I drove for a long time trying to pick up stuff to help this little guy." like she was clearly dissatisfied that we now had ownership of him.
she wanted us to pay for all of the stuff she bought. but goat milk is not needed because its expensive and cow milk is just fine. the colostrum was not needed because my grandma said it does not help anything after the calf is a day or two old. so my mom said she would just buy the milk re placer and bottle. while mom was on the phone with my grandma, Mrs. Kelly was getting a syringe, and shoving COLD goat milk down its throat, her boyfriend was holding the calf so it could not go anywhere.
the calf started coughing it all up and then she got the bottle, the calf sucked on it, bu it was cold, that it did not want it much. grandma went on speaker telling Mrs. Kelly that if you change a calf's diet, when it has been having whole milk, it would die. Mrs. Kelly said, "but he is starving!" finally, mom told her she would pay for the milk re-placer and bottle when dad went to the meeting that night.
and that is how I now own a calf! :) 

here is a video of me bottle feeding, Stormy night! :)