Calves

Every Tuesday afternoon, the calves begin arriving for the weekly sale at the Westminster Livestock Auction -- six or eight at a time delivered by livestock haulers or a lone calf secured in the back of a pickup.Some of the animals scamper into the receiving pens, kicking and bawling as if to announce their arrival. Others -- just a few days old -- have trouble finding their legs and must be coaxed and prodded from the trucks. Most are black-and-white Holstein bull calves sold for veal because they can't contribute milk.

Havre de Grace. -- McDonald's, I read recently, feeds 28 million people a day and buys about 16,000 head of cattle every week to make hamburgers. I thought of that the other day as I sent a rickety old cow down the road to the livestock auction, a single half-ton drop in an endless consumer-bound river of meat.My cow probably didn't end up in a Big Mac, but she might have. I'll never know. Like most farmers, I'm at one end of the production pipeline and the consumer is at the other. We never meet, although we both might enjoy doing so. There are just too many people in between.

A Millers woman says she lost time and money trying to save farm animals purchased at the county's only livestock auction.Two weeks after buying four calves and a lamb at the Westminster Livestock Auction on Aug. 1, Jane Kelley lost all the animals. One of the calves, a newborn that still had its umbilical cord attached, died within a few days of the purchase. The experience has left her critical of the practice of selling young, even newborn, calves.But the owners of the auction say they stand by a longtime "buyer beware" policy and do not compensate bidders for lost animals.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- We shipped out 34 six-month-old calves this week, about nine tons' worth. Their mothers are desolate. They spend much of the day and part of the night at the pasture gate, staring out the lane and bellowing forlornly.The bull, who's in another field, is restless too, but for different reasons. He's been separated from the herd since midsummer, before the heifer calves reached puberty, and all the recent noise has reminded him that he's lonely and would like some company.

[What follows deals with certain biological realities, and is intended for mature audiences only. You might not want to let your children or teen-agers read it.]Havre de Grace. -- Last April 4, when we let the big bull out of the yard where he'd spent the winter and turned him in with the cows, he didn't waste much time. Within minutes, he'd bred one cow and was wandering off to see who else was feeling friendly.I found myself thinking about the bull while listening to President Clinton's State of the Union address the other night, but that's getting ahead of myself.

A Millers woman says she lost time and money trying to save farm animals purchased at the county's only livestock auction.Two weeks after buying four calves and a lamb at the Westminster Livestock Auction on Aug. 1, Jane Kelley lost all the animals. One of the calves, a newborn that still had its umbilical cord attached, died within a few days of the purchase. The experience has left her critical of the practice of selling young, even newborn, calves.But the owners of the auction say they stand by a longtime "buyer beware" policy and do not compensate bidders for lost animals.

Havre de Grace.--Anyone who's spent much time with livestock knows that emergencies occur more frequently on Sundays. This is a law of nature. So it was with some misgivings last Sunday morning that I went out to check the cows.I had a feeling that something was going to happen. This is calving season, the weather has been even harder on cows than on people, and the farm has had pretty good luck the past couple of years. Trouble was overdue.Actually, we've had some cow trouble already this season.

Havre de Grace -- Minute by minute the fall begins. There are flecks of color in the woods. The air chills, condenses, leaves thick morning dew on the grass and takes on an autumnal sharpness and clarity. The swallows have gone. Groundhogs grow fat. An October column looms like the waning moon.But the mood isn't as bright as it should be, to match this brilliant season. Perhaps this is because of all the recent rain? Not likely; the rain has been welcome after a dry summer. It has softened the ground and given a boost to the pastures.

The male dolphin calf born March 20 at Baltimore's National Aquarium was found dead yesterday morning in the Marine Mammal Pavilion's nursery pool -- being pushed through the water by its mother in a futile lifesaving effort.Aquarium officials said mother Nani's instinctive attempt to keep her unnamed calf breathing could not save it from the pneumonia that appeared to be the cause of death.Marine mammal curator Nedra Hecker said the calf was Nani's third; the others, born at Marine Park in Galveston, Texas, also did not survive -- one drowning at birth, the other succumbing to a bacterial infection at three weeks.

Havre de Grace. -- As the trial of one of the alleged slayers of Pam Basu opened in Howard County this week, some of us were fortunate enough to be able to walk in the April sunshine.''April is the cruelest month,'' begins T.S. Eliot's ''The Waste Land.'' It is a famous line, but peculiar, like Eliot himself. Why should April be considered cruel, when the grass is so green and blossoms of impossible colors dance on the cool spring wind? For years this assertion of Eliot's has perplexed his readers, who sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn, wondering what on earth he had against April.

Advice for expectant mothers: Eat nutritious food, take vitamins and visit the doctor for regular checkups and ultrasound exams. It's a regimen that Shiloh and Chesapeake adhere to strictly. They take heavy-duty supplements, have experts make ultrasound images of their babies every month and eat 25 pounds of fish every day. O.K., that's a little more fish than the average human eats - pregnant or not. Shiloh and Chesapeake are two Atlantic bottlenose dolphins who are expected to give birth in late July or August at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

The bottlenose dolphin calf born April 17 at the National Aquarium in Baltimore died Sunday of a suspected respiratory infection, aquarium officials said. The unnamed male calf stopped nursing early Sunday and died hours later. Results of a necropsy performed at the Johns Hopkins University are expected in two to three weeks. Brent Whitaker, the director of animal health, said about a third of newborn dolphin calves - wild or captive - die in their first year. "It's not uncommon, unfortunately," he said.

Every Tuesday afternoon, the calves begin arriving for the weekly sale at the Westminster Livestock Auction -- six or eight at a time delivered by livestock haulers or a lone calf secured in the back of a pickup.Some of the animals scamper into the receiving pens, kicking and bawling as if to announce their arrival. Others -- just a few days old -- have trouble finding their legs and must be coaxed and prodded from the trucks. Most are black-and-white Holstein bull calves sold for veal because they can't contribute milk.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- We shipped out 34 six-month-old calves this week, about nine tons' worth. Their mothers are desolate. They spend much of the day and part of the night at the pasture gate, staring out the lane and bellowing forlornly.The bull, who's in another field, is restless too, but for different reasons. He's been separated from the herd since midsummer, before the heifer calves reached puberty, and all the recent noise has reminded him that he's lonely and would like some company.

A Millers woman says she lost time and money trying to save farm animals purchased at the county's only livestock auction.Two weeks after buying four calves and a lamb at the Westminster Livestock Auction on Aug. 1, Jane Kelley lost all the animals. One of the calves, a newborn that still had its umbilical cord attached, died within a few days of the purchase. The experience has left her critical of the practice of selling young, even newborn, calves.But the owners of the auction say they stand by a longtime "buyer beware" policy and do not compensate bidders for lost animals.

A Millers woman says she lost time and money trying to save farm animals purchased at the county's only livestock auction.Two weeks after buying four calves and a lamb at the Westminster Livestock Auction on Aug. 1, Jane Kelley lost all the animals. One of the calves, a newborn that still had its umbilical cord attached, died within a few days of the purchase. The experience has left her critical of the practice of selling young, even newborn, calves.But the owners of the auction say they stand by a longtime "buyer beware" policy and do not compensate bidders for lost animals.

Havre de Grace. -- McDonald's, I read recently, feeds 28 million people a day and buys about 16,000 head of cattle every week to make hamburgers. I thought of that the other day as I sent a rickety old cow down the road to the livestock auction, a single half-ton drop in an endless consumer-bound river of meat.My cow probably didn't end up in a Big Mac, but she might have. I'll never know. Like most farmers, I'm at one end of the production pipeline and the consumer is at the other. We never meet, although we both might enjoy doing so. There are just too many people in between.

[What follows deals with certain biological realities, and is intended for mature audiences only. You might not want to let your children or teen-agers read it.]Havre de Grace. -- Last April 4, when we let the big bull out of the yard where he'd spent the winter and turned him in with the cows, he didn't waste much time. Within minutes, he'd bred one cow and was wandering off to see who else was feeling friendly.I found myself thinking about the bull while listening to President Clinton's State of the Union address the other night, but that's getting ahead of myself.

Havre de Grace.--Anyone who's spent much time with livestock knows that emergencies occur more frequently on Sundays. This is a law of nature. So it was with some misgivings last Sunday morning that I went out to check the cows.I had a feeling that something was going to happen. This is calving season, the weather has been even harder on cows than on people, and the farm has had pretty good luck the past couple of years. Trouble was overdue.Actually, we've had some cow trouble already this season.

Havre de Grace -- Minute by minute the fall begins. There are flecks of color in the woods. The air chills, condenses, leaves thick morning dew on the grass and takes on an autumnal sharpness and clarity. The swallows have gone. Groundhogs grow fat. An October column looms like the waning moon.But the mood isn't as bright as it should be, to match this brilliant season. Perhaps this is because of all the recent rain? Not likely; the rain has been welcome after a dry summer. It has softened the ground and given a boost to the pastures.