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Shaky the calf may be small, but he’s mighty

Life is Simple: Everyone should have a pet calf.

Jerry Crownover

June 3, 2022

3 Min Read
sunset

Early one morning during the second week of February, as I unrolled a bale of hay, I heard the weak little bawl of a newborn calf. There, in the edge of the woods, stood the tiniest red calf I’d ever seen, seemingly crying for its mother.

Counting cows, while inspecting to see which ones had calved overnight, I spotted a first-calf heifer allowing a new, tiny calf to suckle. Hurriedly, I grabbed the bawling little red calf and carried all 25 pounds of him to who I suspected was the mother of bouncing twins. Since instinct told her she was already taking care of her baby and allowing it to suckle, she rudely butted away the interloper. Sadly, this is quite common with bovine twins.

It was cold that morning, with a skiff of snow covering the ground, and I knew the mini bull wouldn’t last long in those conditions. Swiftly, I loaded the little fellow inside the cab of the tractor and transported him to the barn, where I laid him on a fluffy bed of wheat straw. My wife, Judy, had prepared a bottle of warm colostrum, and he quickly gulped down the contents. Immediately after consuming the warm treat, the little calf began shaking like he was at an old-time Quaker revival. My son’s fiancee was witness to the event, and instantaneously dubbed the newborn calf “Shaky.”

We fed the calf three to four times daily, and he would live up to his new name every single time he received nourishment. After a week, the feedings became twice-daily shaking events. After six weeks of living in the barn, and accompanying warmer weather, Judy released the calf to run with all the other cattle, and quickly trained him to come to the yard fence and bawl for his bottle both morning and evening. By this time, he no longer shook, but he still didn’t weigh 50 pounds.

Everybody needs a pet

Any passerby to our farm would look at Shaky and simply assume he was either a miniature animal (he doesn’t look like a dwarf), or he was a week-old calf, instead of nearly 4 months old. He has become a pet, and I’ll wager that Judy will still be feeding him a bottle — if we can scrape up the money for milk replacer — when the end of summer comes. Every farmer needs a pet calf, right?

A couple of weeks ago, the cowboys were scheduled to arrive to gather every animal on the place and run them through the chutes, in order to vaccinate, deworm, brand, ear tag and castrate the bull calves. I arose well before daylight that morning to get everything organized for the day’s activities.

As I slowly walked in the predawn darkness from my house to the barn, I heard an ominous noise from behind me. Too dark to see what was closing in on me at a dead run, I was shocked to feel something very solid hit me about butt high. Falling to the ground and shaking from fear, I looked up (not very high) to see the source of my pain.

Shaky looked down at me as if to say, “Who’s shaking now?”

Crownover raises beef cattle in Missouri.

About the Author

Jerry Crownover

Jerry Crownover wrote a bimonthly column dealing with agriculture and life that appeared in many magazines and newspapers throughout the Midwest, including Wisconsin Agriculturist. He retired from writing in 2024 and now tells his stories via video on the Crown Cattle Company YouTube channel.

Crownover was raised on a diversified livestock farm deep in the heart of the Missouri Ozarks. For the first few years of his life, he did without the luxuries of electricity or running water, and received his early education in one of the many one-room schoolhouses of that time. After graduation from Gainesville High School, he enrolled at the University of Missouri in the College of Agriculture, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1974 and a master's of education degree in 1977.

After teaching high school vocational agriculture for five years, Crownoever enrolled at Mississippi State University, where he received a doctorate in agricultural and Extension education. He then served as a professor of ag education at Missouri State University for 17 years. In 1997, Crownover resigned his position at MSU to do what he originally intended to after he got out of high school: raise cattle.

He now works and lives on a beef cattle ranch in Lawrence County, Mo., with his wife, Judy. He has appeared many times on public television as an original Ozarks Storyteller, and travels throughout the U.S. presenting both humorous and motivational talks to farm and youth groups.

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