In Tennessee, this dairy cow, Maybelle had been producing milk for around eight years for her previous owners, she was healthy and cared for well by them. But like many cows over five years old she was not producing as much milk anymore.
Her previous owners were very grateful for the years she had produced good milk and they were very happy to surrender her to the sanctuary called The Gentle Barn.
Andrea Burritt, the sanctuary Manager was happy to receive Maybelle and she wouldn’t have to produce any more milk again for people.
She could now spend her time in comfy stalls and have nice deep bedding and graze in the fields in the lovely pastures on the sanctuary.
But even though Maybelle had a wonderful environment, comfy and relaxed she was still pacing and crying, she was really frantic!
Andrea was really concerned for her, and what was wrong, it was really hard to see her so distressed, she said that it made her feel awful!
She said:
“She would look you right in the eye, and just scream. You knew something was wrong, and it was just hard trying to figure out how we could help and what we could do.”
The only time Andrea had seen her stressed like this before was when she had been separated from her baby. No one knew if she had a baby, but it certainly looked like she did.
Like us, humans animals have extremely strong bonds with their young. Mothers love is clearly what seemed to be compelling her to feel like this, she was trying to tell everyone what was wrong!
The family that owned Maybelle didn’t have a phone so the Gentle Barn confounder, Jay Weiner, went over to the farm to see if she had a baby on site, he had a trailed just in case they did have her baby there!
Sure enough, there was a calf, and it was Maybelle’s baby, the little calf was male and 9 months old, called Miles, how sweet!
Miles was over the age of weaning and was completely self-sufficient now, but he was next to Maybelle’s pasture and they saw each other every day!
They talked about what to do and in the end, they decided that Miles should also stay with her mom, they loaded her onto the trailer and headed back with her…
As soon as Maybelle heard the calf, she knew it was hers, everyone was so pleased to see her happy again!
Andrea said:
“We ran to Maybelle and told her, We have your baby, we have your baby”
“And she just stood at the corner of the pasture until she saw that trailer come. Then she started chasing the trailer across the pasture up to the top.”
Maybelle was calm again and all was well with the two of them, she even started eating again, because she hadn’t been eating she had been moved to the Gentle Barn.
As another complete surprise to everyone, months later Maybelle was found to be pregnant! She was pregnant when she was brought to the sanctuary but no-one had realized that she was at the time!
Maybelle had a little girl, she was called Eclipse, now Maybelle, Miles, and Eclipse are all together on the sanctuary at the Gentle Barn, these lovely cows will have such an awesome time together!