TimesLeader.com

February 7

Special bond between them began at birth

By Rebecca Bria rbria@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

All seemed normal on Jan. 27 at The Lands at Hillside Farms when Buttercup went into labor.

A 2-year-old Jersey heifer, Buttercup delivered a calf, Lilac, after about an hour of labor. Although Lilac seemed a bit small, all was well until Amy Deome, a teamster at the farm, noticed Buttercup was delivering a second calf. The staff was unaware Buttercup was carrying twins.

The second calf, named Lily, was not breathing and was quickly hung upside down to help rid her lungs of her mother’s amniotic fluid. When Lily still didn’t take a breath, Deome took matters into her own hands.

“I put my hand over the nostrils and the mouth and I put my mouth over one of her nostrils and blew into it,” Deome said. “Then she took her first breath and we put a piece of hay in her nose to stimulate a sneeze response.”

Deome, 38, of Shavertown, the wife of Chuck Deome, farm manager at The Lands at Hillside Farms, learned the procedure from a Massachusetts veterinarian named Dr. Tom Ray.

She agrees that her own motherly instincts helped save little Lily. The Deomes have five children

“I think that plays a part in it,” Deome said. “The babies are special. It’s one of my favorite things to do to calf out cows. It’s quite an impressive thing to witness and be a part of.”

Deome says it is fairly unusual for a heifer to give birth to twins, especially two females. Usually in the event of twins, one calf and one bull calf are born.

Lilac, 15 pounds, and Lily, 25 pounds, were immediately taken away from their mother. For the first week, they were each fed two bottles of their mother’s milk. They were then switched to two bottles a day each of a milk formula.

Deome explained that cows today are designed to milk more than a calf should be fed. If the cows naturally fed their calves, the calves would be overfed and the moms would be under milked, causing both moms and babies to become sick.

Lilac and Lily now join a herd of about 100 cows, 75 of whom are milking cows. Jersey heifer cows live to be about 9 years old at The Lands at Hillside Farms, but they only live to be about 5 on an average farm, Deome said.

According to Deome, the cows are bred at the farm beginning at a year to a year and a half old and carry their young for nine months. Many of the cows are pregnant and 10 are expected to give birth this month alone.

“They’re like our family, too,” she said. “That’s the way you have to treat it.”