New Life--New Leg

This month, around the 9th, my heifer, Penelope, had her first calf, a red bull.  But do understand that we do not calve this early normally.  No, Penelope was with a bunch of other cows and bulls and was bred early.  Thankfully, the weather played in her favor and she successfully had her baby without a problem.  We had been checking her whenever we were checking other cows and she looked like she had been nursed.  But we never saw her calf.  We just figured he didn't want to cross the river and thought nothing of it.  Until yesterday when we began moving all of our cows.
Big J. was pushing the other cows/calves/bulls westward and I was riding with Dad to go gather Penelope and her calf to also push to the next pasture.  Well, we found more cows with Penelope and while riding, I wanted to see the little calf more and more.  I had not seen him yet and was excited to be able to.  We crossed the river and looked passed a little group of cows.  There stood the little guy, right by his great mother!  Nothing looked wrong until he took a step.  Dad took a closer look while I thought about how handsome he was.  With in a few moments, Dad declared the calf's leg broke.
Broke?  Yes, and who knows how it happened.  We were very disappointed about it, though.  After making them walk a ways, we decided to leave Penelope and the calf behind while continuing to move the others.  And we finished before too late into the afternoon.
Today we three, Dad, Big J., and I, went back out to the pasture to help the calf with his leg.  It took us a while to find the bull, for his mother had left him and was eating quite a ways away from him.  But, with the help of Penelope and God, we found him resting under a tamarisk.  We had with us two short sticks and some doctor tape.  Dad put the splint on the calf's left front leg while I held and petted him.  (My job was hard...not.)
We fed Penelope some cake (horse and cow treats) and watched the calf walk around.  He got to places pretty well for only having three feet.  And now we will just pray that his leg will heal correctly and quickly.  I sure hope it does!
Till next post!  : )

Penelope with Jr.