A local farm family is mourning the tragic and unexpected loss of their newest calf, and hopes to be able to raise funds to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again.
On Thanksgiving morning, Fold of Liberty Farms in Spanish Fork, woke up to find that one of its Highland cows named Oatmeal had given birth. The calf, however, was found to have drowned in a nearby drainage ditch.
“I don’t know exactly what happened but one of our Highland cows, Oatmeal had her calf, somewhere around midnight,” farm owner Vernon Stout said. “Sometime before she gave birth, Oatmeal and a couple of other cows walked through our chain link fence. We don’t know if it was a predator that scared them to the other side, but they ended up on the wrong side of the fence.”
Stout explained that each day, they move the fence to keep their cows in an area to eat fresh grass as part of their regenerative farming efforts while the other grass grows. That fence also blocks off access to the drainage ditch.
Unfortunately, whatever happened that night, caused the cows to flee to the other side of the fence where the ditch is. While on that other side is when Oatmeal gave birth to her calf.
“Oatmeal was on the wrong side of the electric fence when she had the baby,” Stout said. “We found the exact location where she gave birth, which was about 25-30 feet from the drainage ditch. There’s no fence between the field where Oatmeal had the baby and the drainage ditch. So, after the baby got standing up and walking around, it walked up to the drainage ditch and just fell in and drowned.
“She was a beautiful white calf who weighed about 55 pounds, and I just couldn’t save her,” he continued. “It looks to me like she struggled in the water for a while because she was standing up in the water and her face was just underwater. When we got to her, she was still warm. We tried to resuscitate her, but she’d been in the water for too long.”
In hopes of preventing another tragedy like this, Stout hopes to build a hard wire fence the entire length of the ditch. The fence will still allow them to move their electric fence, but will block off access to the ditch.
“Our goal is to put a fence around the entire drainage ditch so that this can never happen again,” he said. “It is so sad to lose a perfectly healthy and adorable little calf, and we just don’t have the money to build a fence right now. It has been in our long term plan, but it’s a couple of years out from a financial perspective.”
In a social media post, Fold of Liberty Farms expressed their sadness for not only their loss, but of Oatmeal’s, saying that this is an experience that “no mother should have.”
“This is a heartbreaking loss being felt by our whole family and anyone who has come to love our cows as much as we do,” the post read. “This was not something that any of us could have anticipated. We have had several healthy births on our farm and truly believed that Oatmeal’s sweet baby girl would be no different.
We were rejoicing with Oatmeal as she was entering the final stages of her first pregnancy, and now we mourn with her as she suffers the loss of her firstborn baby. This is an experience that no mother should have.”
A Gofundme account has been set up to raise funds under “Baby Highland Cow Passes Away.” You can also reach out to Fold of Liberty Farms on Facebook and Instagram.
On a side note, Brittney Adams Stowe, local photographer does photography at the farm of portraits.
