Random Status Report
☆ April 17, 2012
The trickery worked. We jacketed the calf, which (skip to the next paragraph if you’re squeamish) means skinning the dead calf and putting that hide onto the orphan calf ~ four holes are cut in the corners of the hide for the orphan’s legs to pass through; this keeps the hide anchored across her back.
Mama cows know their calf through sight and sound but confirm it through scent, and jacketing confuses the mother enough to let the new calf nurse. Once the orphan calf has its new mother’s milk coursing through its body for a day or two, the calf begins to smell like her, becomes hers, and the jacket can come off. This mama is wholly devoted to her new baby.
Oreo, NICU baby, is the princess of the herd. One would never know, looking at her now, how tenuous her first days were. She’s strong and playful and curious, chasing chickens, ringleader of the calves.
I made this, following the cold recipe she links to near the bottom of her post and it is AMAZING, like distractingly good, like I was walking into walls because the only thing my consciousness could register was the deliciousness of shrub in my mouth.
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April 17th, 2012 @ 7:52 am
Added randomness: random query – whatever happened to the intern from yonks and yonks ago? (I can’t even link to the original post since I don’t remember when that happened!) Not diving for drama, just curious if she’s still there helping out. If not, then there ya go. :)
April 17th, 2012 @ 7:59 am
Okay, I am going to have to try that stuff! That is, shrub syrup…it sounds yummy! Any idea if you can substitute the sugar?
April 17th, 2012 @ 8:08 am
I am glad Oreo is doing so well. A picture of her and the other calves, please, when ever you have time.
April 17th, 2012 @ 8:23 am
A ~ that fizzled out ages ago, right at the time when the stalker showed up in my life; I didn’t write about it at the time because I had way bigger things on my mind and then it was like, bygones, etc…
April 17th, 2012 @ 8:26 am
Glad to hear the adoption went well!
It’s also good to hear that Oreo has become a princess in her own right…is there any competition between her and Fiona in cuteness? (I don’t think they live in the same herd (?)) :o)
I hope spring is finally starting to move in for you and the farmily!
April 17th, 2012 @ 8:28 am
Kinda figured. :) Thanks for the update!
It’s like one of those insignificant plot holes that wake you up at 3am months later, and you’re all, “but wait, -why- was the Ambassador from Paraguay at 7-Eleven in the first place?!?”
April 17th, 2012 @ 8:28 am
Question about the jacketing, does it generally work better than say Vicks on the mother and baby? This is the technique my inlaws use to get an orphan matched with a cow – putting vicks on the mother’s nose and on the calf – rather than the work involved with jacketing.
April 17th, 2012 @ 8:36 am
A ~ ha!
E ~ Vicks on a nose? yikes! I would not like that if it were me…. especially as a cow’s sense of smell is SO much more acute than ours…. but the intent is the same, to override the smell memory. Jacketing really is not that much work and has never failed us to date.
April 17th, 2012 @ 10:28 am
Is shrub like Kombucha in flavor at all? I get the Synergy Kombucha sometimes and it has a vinaigrey flavor because of the fermentation…
April 17th, 2012 @ 10:39 am
W ~ I’m going to try my next batch with honey but I have no idea how that will go, will report back :)
M ~ yes! very similar, but richer & deeper.
April 17th, 2012 @ 12:32 pm
Wow… that syrup looks delicious and I can’t wait to make some. It reminds me of some Mulberry cordial that I tried in New Zealand and am aching to have again: http://www.dirtykitchensecrets.com/sharab-el-toot-making-mulberry-syrup/
April 17th, 2012 @ 1:46 pm
Thanks for the farmily updates and the good calf news. It’s a very smile inducing post:)
April 17th, 2012 @ 3:18 pm
Yay for Tricksy!
Wow that’s a lot of sugar.
April 17th, 2012 @ 5:45 pm
F ~ not really, per drink ~ some ferments out (this varies on how long you let it sit) and you only use a slug of the concentrate in a glass full of bubbly water.
April 17th, 2012 @ 6:22 pm
Thanks for the update. Always interested in the happenings around the ranch. So Oreo is a princess. Would you expect anything else? Considering her start being pampered, wrapped in blankets, laying by a fire, waited on,……. I tease, so glad she is doing so well and also the orphan.
April 18th, 2012 @ 8:32 am
So glad to hear things are looking up. I never heard of this “jacketing” process until today. Marvelous idea, glad it worked for both baby and momma. :)
April 18th, 2012 @ 8:48 am
thrilled to read of your success with the little orphan and the news of oreo thriving makes my heart dance. so happy for those in your care.
i do a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar every morning straight to the tonsils (rocking my head back and forth before swallowing) and have gotten accustomed to the smell and almost to the taste. haven’t been sick since i started the practice, unless i skip a few days. vinegar truly is incredible. now i am fascinated with this new drink. sounds right up my alley. thanks for enlightening me!
April 18th, 2012 @ 6:05 pm
So glad the calf has been accepted! I always wondered though, would the blood from the jacket worry the mother at all?
April 18th, 2012 @ 6:34 pm
My sister grows a garden that could feed 20 and always has a variety of raspberries. She makes a raspberry liquor that is like a liquid raspberry. I could bathe in it. She doles out cute little bottles as gifts even though I sent over a gallon jug!
April 18th, 2012 @ 10:45 pm
I have made this more than once (old recipe). Used red wine vinegar instead. Yes, Shrub is very yummy and good for you too.
BERRY SHRUB
1 pint raspberries
1 pint blackberries
1 bottle red wine vinegar
½ cup sugar
½ cup water
Throw all but vinegar into a pot and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add vinegar and boil for about 2 minutes. Skim and strain resulting mixture and bottle.
I think the short boil helps to thicken it some as well as to kill off any bacteria that may ferment it into something else less desirable.
April 18th, 2012 @ 11:35 pm
Bronwyn ~ There’s no blood. To explain why would entail a detailed description of skinning an animal which would probably sound really creepy and gross, but basically, you aren’t cutting any veins or arteries when skinning; it’s actually very tidy.
Cathy ~ HA! Sounds divine…
April 19th, 2012 @ 7:19 am
James Herriot wrote of jacketing a lamb in one of his books (can’t remember which at the moment). It worked well in his account.
April 19th, 2012 @ 12:34 pm
Shreve, using Vick’s is pretty common. It’s also used on equine studs when they need to be in close contact to mares, say at a show or being transported together.
Glad Oreo is doing so well.
April 20th, 2012 @ 9:35 am
S ~ you’re missing my point – I’m not saying it wouldn’t work, I’m saying it would be way harsh on the animal.
April 20th, 2012 @ 9:49 am
Thank you for the update on the jacketed calf and it’s adoptive mother– glad all is doing well.
I didn’t know a lot about “shrub” the beverage, so I researched it little. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates the word in this sense may be a deriviative of the Arabic word “sharab” meaning wine or any spirits. In the old days in England, “shrub” was often identified as to what kind of alcohol was mixed with the fruit juice (usually from lemons or limes) and sugar, such as “rum-shrub”. In 19th-century America, “shrub” referred to a drink made with raspberry juice and sugar, apparently a forerunner of today’s variants. Thanks for leading me to enlightenment, lol!
April 20th, 2012 @ 10:18 am
Random recipe question…
No idea why this popped into my head, other than a)you posted about a recipe, b)I’ve been trying to figure out how to get hold of whole milk locally & c) you’re lucky to have access to the aforementioned!
Have you ever tried to make clotted cream? I’m from Cornwall in the UK… it’s the best cream ever! Looking at recipes, it doesn’t appear to be too difficult to make. Unfortunately all the milk you can get commercially here (Canada) is homogenized.
April 20th, 2012 @ 1:46 pm
I have a question…Why are some mother cows not as loving and doting like you describe your herd? Recently I was amongst a herd and I was heartbroken to find several babies left by themselves while the mothers kept up with the rest of the herd in a completely different pasture. They called to us as we drove by and I almost cried. My husband says that if you disturb a calf it will run itself to death. Is that true? On calf (none of these cows belong to us) had been laying in the same spot for about 3 hours so we pulled over to check on him. He seemed very weak and fragile but once he was on his feet he just ran and ran and ran, got tangled in the fence, got loose, and just kept running. I thought about that little guy all night wishing there was something more I could have done.
April 22nd, 2012 @ 3:06 am
L ~ I think I’ve made it by accident and loved it – thanks for the reminder! I must try it in ernest again.
H ~ It’s not uncommon for mama cows to hide their calves and leave them to go graze. A calf, unless it feels extremely threatened, will stay where it’s mother left it for hours ~ this is normal (and yeah, disturbing it can mess things up, and the mother won’t be able to find her baby as quickly – they know *exactly* where they leave their calves). Calves sleep a lot, and cows have built in baby monitors – if a calf cries out for it’s mama, mama can hear it from WAY far and comes a’running.
The coolest thing, which would never be noticeable when you’re not living with cows day in and day out, is that they will make a nursery of sorts, with a bunch of calves in one area and one or two cows stay to attend to them while the rest of the cows go off to have brunch. After a while one cow will return to relieve one of the nursery attendants, and so on. So, the cows you see probably do care, but have systems in place that easily go unnoticed!
April 23rd, 2012 @ 9:44 am
I made a little shrub over the weekend and I’m pleased with my first attempt. Very good in Diet Sierra Mist. Also tried it with Splenda and didn’t get quite the same results…I think I will try again though and vary some tactics…more crushing, more waiting, etc.
Also, on a side note, the Tait Farms mentioned in the one article is about an hour from where I live…awesome place! I want to stop by and purchase some of their shrub and see what it’s like.
April 23rd, 2012 @ 3:36 pm
OK, I tried it with honey and the honey/vinegar does not dissovle/integrate like sugar.
AND, for all those concerned about sugar intake/ subbing w/ honey or splenda, the sugar in shrub doesn’t stay “sugar”. It feeds the yeast on the berries and interacts with the vinegar – it’s part of the fermenting process. The article with the recipe I link to has a scientific explanation of this.
Kombucha, for example, starts out with cups and cups of sugar but you’re not drinking sugar when you’re drinking kombucha – it’s food for the good little beasties and is transformed. A similar thing happens with shrub.
Hope this incoherent explanation helps a bit!
April 24th, 2012 @ 7:28 pm
I made some raspberry shrub over the weekend and it is insanely delicious. I splashed some in a glass of ginger ale–heavenly! I’m now working on a massive batch of strawberry shrub. The settled sugar was so thick that it bent the spoon I was using when I went to give it a stir this afternoon. Color me giddy!
April 25th, 2012 @ 2:47 pm
I’m so glad to hear about the calf. How nice when mother nature comes through, yet again…
I am so interested in the shrub, will have to try with raspberries and strawberries!
SO glad you’re writing again, I hope this means a book sometime in the future…
April 27th, 2012 @ 1:19 am
hi, I miss seeing Eli. Looks like he is doing well. I just lost Max, my beloved pal(dog) 7 weeks ago. After I flew him from Virginia to Hawaii. I thought I would spoil him to death taking to the ocean every week, but he suddenly got sick and passed…I just look at Charlie’s picture every day to keep my spirit up. Glad everyone on your side is doing well.