Tough Love.

I apologize if the above photo is somewhat insensitive.

As of 8:30pm EST tonight, this (unnamed, sorry) calf is still among the living. This is no fault of mine own, I tried my damndest to kill her.
I had a full day of staying inside and cleaning my room and responding to months old emails and thinking up clever beef ads and updating my blog with something less sickening than dying calves all planned out. I went around to feed my beefs their silage about 9am, like I always do. And I saw a calf on its side, all asprawl, stomach looking like one of those exercise balls. Shitdamn.

Cut to last Saturday night, at a bar watching a band with some friends. Comes up to me, she does, and she says, "so you don't have any problems with bloating?" Rather superiorly I reply, "We don't feed grain, just hay." "Alfalfa hay?" "yeah...?" "That'll cause bloat too."

Damn those vet students and their evil knowledge. So, here I am with a bloated calf and zero idea as how to proceed. I call my mom. She tells me to punch it with a knife, but to stand back cause all the gas (and whatever else is digesting in there) will come a-shootin' out. Later a vet will inform me that the blade of box-cutter isn't long enough to pierce the hide and rumen wall...
Now I have a cut, bleeding, bloated calf. So I call our vet. He offers to come out. But I insist on advice. He tells me to find a good 6 foot length of garden hose. Feed it down to the stomach and the gas should come right out. The calf chews the first hose I try in half, so I find a sturdier, double-ply barn hose. I've fed the entire 8' length into god-knows-where and all I have to show for it is a small trickle of bile. So I call the vet again. He's on farm calls.
Six hours later he calls me back. Asks me how I'm doing. I tell him the hose failed. All afternoon. I must've sent four different hoses into that calf over 9 times. No go. "It must not be bloat," says he, splaining that "cause if it was it should be dead by now." WTF mate? Thanks for calling, you know, 5 hours ago to tell me I didn't have much time. It's not like there is anyone in the county who doesn't know I'm new to all this.
He suggests feeding it some diesel fuel, just in case it is bloat and the calf is just a survivor. I stick a piece of tubing back down her throat and give her a cup of diesel water. For my efforts she bites my finger. No blame there.
Diesel does the trick. Fifteen minutes later she's deflating visibly. But her temp has dropped seven degrees. Cows hardly ever recover from sinking below 100. She's at 93.

I'm now fit to work at Guantonamo Bay.
She's sleeping with a heating pad and a blanket of straw. I'll be surprised if she makes it to morning.