We refer to our roping herd as the roping steers. I tend to forget that some of our cattle are cows. Speedy is one that we have had a couple years. She has always been a small animal with cool stripes. I named her "Speedy Gonzales" AKA Speedy when we got her because she was the fastest. We had a bull in our stock as well and Mark was worried we might end up with calves. He knew that Speedy had been bred, but thought that we might be having a calf late fall. He was running her in the chutes as she got fatter and fatter. She was starting to get stuck. The guys would poke and prod her and squeeze her through. Mark kept telling me she was just fat from all the hay and keep pushing. One night at the end of August, Speedy was getting stuck and I was pushing and I told Mark she was pregnant and her hips were wide and she should not be roped. He argued that she can't be that pregnant, she wasn't due untill fall. He would grab her tail and shove with all her might to get her through the chute. I wasn't very happy about it. Sure enough the next morning, we had a new calf on the ground. Speedy still had her horn wraps on and had been roped the night before. I didn't have to say anything to Mark, he knew I wasn't happy. I felt bad for the poor mama. The calf was so little and the flies were all over it. It seemed weak and small. We didn't know if it was premature or if it would survive. I watched it throughout the day and it got up and sucked. Those baby calves sure are cute! I wish we could bottle feed one and keep it as a pet.
Little did we know, that through the summer, we ended up with 2 more calves and later in the winter, a calf that was a big surprise and got too cold and didn't make it through the day. We called my niece Torrie to tube it, but it died minutes after she arrived.
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