What was the work like?

I wouldn’t exactly call being thrown into my work a baptism by fire, even though the weather was still blisteringly hot, and no matter how often I showered in a day, I just couldn’t get keep from sweating. Seeing my plight, and commiserating with me, somebody told me to wait for the cold season, it would get better. Yeah, right, a cold season. How cold does it get, 33 above? What’s more, it was still a few months away and no use to me in September or October. In the meantime, I had to work and try to appear to know what I was doing while at the same time not trying to insult or upset anybody and make sure that I was actually of benefit to the cooperative; after all, I was earning the grand sum of 4,000 Baht a month (about 200 dollars Canadian).

Pedicures before they became popular

The first six months I spent on the back of a motorcycle, towing along a crate that was used to trim the hooves of cows. Yes, like people, the hooves on cows grow, like do our human toenails. The problem with cows’ hooves is that they are bigger and consist of only two nails. The other problem is that they are constantly standing in mud, manure or on gravel. This softens the hooves, and little stones get inside, or the hooves are damaged and the insides start to rot. Hence, the cart with the knives and the guys driving around the country side visiting farm after farm to alleviate the suffering of the bovines.

Unlike human nails, however, bovine hooves have to be cut relatively deeply, and sometimes to the quick, and you get a small bloodbath. That’s taken care of by an application of iodine and a cheery “Oh, that’s nothing” to the farmer, before turning around, leaving, and hoping that the hoof will heal in a few days’ time. In most cases the trimming helped, and only in some cases did the trimming come too late. It is a sad sight to see one of these animals slowly starving to death, unable to move, become listless, and eventually ignoring any feed that is placed in front of it. It’s frustrating not to be able to do anything about it.

You might well ask why a small pebble can have such a devastating effect. It’s not unlike you stepping on a thumbtack. Stuck in your foot it would irritate, an abscess will form, and eventually, without treatment, you will become feverish, start to skip meals…. You get the idea.

The miracle of life…

There were some great times, and some bad times. Some of the greatest would be assisting with the birth of a calf.

There is no miracle greater than the birth of a living being, whether it be human or animal, but as with humans, there are problem births with animals as well, and there is a great thrill of excitement when you have actually managed to save the life of a cow and its calf after a few hours of very difficult and heavy work.

If you’ve ever read James Herriott and his stories about being a veterinarian in England, you’ll understand some of the things that go on in the animal world. If you haven’t, start reading, because they are marvelous stories, funny, heartbreaking and exhilarating. He complains of a 4 am delivery in sub-zero temperatures and water that has just been hauled out of a nearly frozen stream.

Try it the other way around, 40 degree weather, you’re sweating, the cow is sweating and you have to physically assert yourself. The t-shirt comes off, and you’re half naked, crouched down on your knees in something that resembled straw a few months ago, but is now a mush of manure, urine and lots of other things. You’ve lathered up your arm with soap, and now your fingers are grasping blindly inside the cow’s uterus for a front leg, a head, or anything that can be identified as the calf inside. There is blood and gore dripping out of the vagina, and you arm is getting numb from the pressure of the uterus as the cow tries to contract it and push the calf out. A sudden fart from the cow sprays shit everywhere, and you’re still in there trying to find that calf.

By now the mixture of liquids and solids is streaming down your body, further lubricated by copious amounts of sweat.

Damn! Oh…oh… there it is. Got it! The first leg. Now to move along it to find if it’s the front or hind leg. Thank God, it is the front leg. Wait, there is another leg. And another. But wait, they’re all front legs. What’s going on?

‘Find the head!” is the command from above.

“Yes, damn it, I’m trying. It’s hot in here.

Oh, there it is, the head. Wait, there’s another. We’ve got twins, and they’re intertwined.

This is where the hard part starts. You try to push the one back in, while trying to pull the other one out, all the while the cow is pushing to just get rid of everything, your arm included.

The ropes come out, and you try to snake a loop around the one leg, then the other, finally hoping that you’ve got the two right legs from the one calf and not one from each. As the other assistants stand around and try to pull on the rope, your arm snakes back inside in the goobery mess, all the way up to the arm pit this time, trying to push the second calf back in. There is an almighty groan, and the small white hooves appear from the vagina. Step one completed, now the head. Pushing back on the one calf, you’re searching for the head of the first one and try to arrange it neatly along its legs as they’re being pulled on.

“Wait, the head’s bent backwards!”

The pulling stops, and your arm comes out to try to push the entire sordid mess back in, hooves and all so that you can turn the head the right way around. The excretions are so copious now that you can’t really be bothered thinking about it, except to hope that somewhere on the farm there is a large pond of clear cold water where you can just soak for a few hours after the job is done.

“Alright, try it again, the head’s in the right place now.”

More pulling on the ropes, and out come the hooves again. Time is of the essence now, as things inside are starting to dry up, and if we fool around much longer, the cow will have a really rough time of it with no natural lubrication in the birth canal.

There is another grunt from behind as the assembled crowd pulls on the ropes, and there, slowly but surely, comes the tip of the nose. The cow seems to realize what’s going on, and gives another tremendous push, nearly crushing the arm between its pelvic bone and the head and body of the calf. Suddenly another explosion of blood and liquid, and the calf is lying on the ground. Someone quickly grabs a handful of straw and starts to wipe away the mucus from around its nose and mouth, and rub its body to start it breathing. There is a small hiccup, and its eyes start to flutter, and there comes a gurgle, then a normal breath.

Great, this one’s alive and going to be alright.

The arm is back inside, once again groping for the front legs of the second calf. All the pushing and shoving has placed it backwards in the womb, and it takes another 10 minutes of maneuvering to put it in the proper position, then the ropes come and there is an almighty heave outside, while the cow pushes one more time to expel its offspring. This one’s easy, it pops out without much of a struggle. It’s smaller than its… oh, let me see. Ah the first one is a female, and this one? Oh, it’s female as well, so it’s smaller than its sister, and it hasn’t started to breathe.

More rubbing of the body, but no success.

Grab it by the hind legs and hang it over a crossbeam, head down. That’ll flush the liquids out of the lungs, and blood to the brain. More rubbing, and yes, finally, a gurgle. There is a discharge of all the gunk that’s been collecting in the lungs, but suddenly the eyes flutter open. A pail of cold water is thrown on the calf for good measure. Hey, Wait, cold water? Where’d you get that? I want me some of that.

The sudden plunge of the cold water seems to have done the trick and the calf is now wide awake, and breathing.

Hoisted down from the bean it is carefully placed near the mother, along with its sister. After a few moments of disinterest, the cow suddenly gets to her feet, and starts to lick her offspring, cleaning away the afterbirth and vigorously trying to get them to breathe deeply. Instinctively, she knows that they’ve had a hard time of it, and she’ll have to do her best to make sure they survive.

All’s well that ends well with… a bottle of Mekhong

The farmer is ecstatic, he’s just earned himself somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 Baht, I’m ecstatic, ‘cause I’ve earned myself a good long soak in some cool water, and the boys are ecstatic because they’ve earned themselves a bottle of Mekhong.