Joe Carpenter was adding water tanks to a pasture on a cold January morning when he saw a mama cow with "that tail position that means business."

He was startled because even the earliest calves in the herd weren't expected for another eight weeks.  

But he quickly buttoned up the work he was doing and headed for the cow just as a tiny, 30-pound, 54-day-early calf dropped to the ground. Alive.

"She was licking him vigorously, just like she should," he says. "But he was way too tiny and weak to stand. Another 20 minutes and he wouldn't have made it."

Carpenter quickly wrapped up the baby and brought him back to the farm office, where he has a heating tank to warm up newborn calves.

He put the baby in the warmer, put in a quarter-inch rumen tube and pumped in warm colostrum replacer.

"I just left him in the warming tank and thought, ‘Well, I've done all I can. Now I just have to hope for the best,’" Carpenter says.

Carpenter manages Downey Ranch, which he has operated with his wife, Barb Downey, and members of her family since 1986. They have two daughters, Anna, a freshman at North Oklahoma University in Miami, Okla., and Laura, a junior at Wamego High School.

"My dad started the ranch," Downey says. "I always knew that ranching is what I wanted to do."

She met Carpenter at Kansas State University.

"I started at Fort Hays State in pre-vet and then transferred to K-State," Carpenter says. "I ended up with a degree in animal science, the same as Barb."

Even though working with cattle is something that is a daily routine for ranchers like Downey and Carpenter, it is rare to have a calf like little Miracle, who has been named by Facebook fans across Kansas.

"We really talked about whether or not to share his story right away on Facebook," Downey says. "I was worried because he might not make it. There are still so many things that can go wrong."

But, she says, they decided to share Miracle's struggle because it illustrates how hard ranchers work to take care of the animals they love.

They started feeding him with a baby bottle used with their own children, dug out of storage.

"We end up with about one calf a year that needs the baby bottle," Carpenter says.

A week after his premature birth, little Miracle was able to stand on his own and with a little help, latch on to nurse. Carpenter helps him stay in position and encourages him by massaging mom's teats to get milk flow started.

He started milking the mama cow and saving the milk to feed Miracle.

"He's starting not to care so much for the milk replacer. He's had a taste of something better," Carpenter says.

He says the mother cow, one of the ranch's purebred Angus seedstock cows, is a candidate for "mother of the year."

LITTLE MIRACLE: Joe Carpenter supports "Miracle," an extremely premature calf, as he nurses. Miracle has become something of a Facebook sensation as his owners at Downey Ranch in Wabaunsee County share his story.

She has accepted the calf in spite of the circumstances of his birth and the separation, nuzzles him and encourages him to nurse. She stands calmly as Carpenter holds the baby up to nurse.

"I think she's a real testament to our efforts at low-stress animal handling," Downey says. "We've worked very hard at developing handling methods to keep the cows from feeling threatened or frightened."

The tiny calf is far from out of the woods. His weight was up to about 37 pounds, and he seemed to be digesting his food OK as of Jan. 11.

"We worry about underdeveloped lungs and the danger of getting a respiratory infection. Or underdeveloped digestion and the inability to utilize food, or underdeveloped kidneys that don't filter toxins well enough," Downey says. "His little joints are all wobbly with the connective tissue not well-developed."

Baby Miracle has very short hair due to his extreme prematurity, which makes him vulnerable to the cold.

That's why the indoor show arena, which used to be utilized for spring seedstock sales that have since moved to video, is so handy.

GOING FOR IT: Tiny Miracle, born 54 days early, is learning to walk and to nurse from his mother, who has been brought indoors at the farm shop to feed him several times a day.

"It's a great place to warm up calves," Carpenter says.

It also makes an ideal place to bring in a mama cow to deal with a calf like Miracle, he says.

He says that for the next several weeks — assuming Miracle makes progress — his mama will be brought into the tiny arena several times a day, much like a dairy cow going to the milking parlor, though her milking machine will be a tiny, hungry baby.

"So many people think ranching is only about making money," Downey says. "If we were only in this for the money, we wouldn't even try with something this risky. We have a lot of time, money and effort wrapped up in trying to save him, but that's what we do because we love the animals in our care."

Downey Ranch will welcome about 500 calves during the spring calving season, she says. Hopefully none of them will demand the time and effort that has been lavished on Miracle during his early days, but each and every mama and baby are loved.

She said loving animals does not stop because of the realization that they are raised for the express purpose of providing food for humans.

"Our mission is to make sure that these animals are cared for, comfortable and unafraid right up to the end of their lives," she says. "It is what we do."