Fantastic day – got to drive a digger. Noah is going to be proud of his Dad. Massive yellow one as well. The circumstances of this adventure were not quite so fantastic though – in fact they were desperately sad. The farmer’s cow died overnight leaving the farmer in tears. Really choked me to see him so upset – a tough Mexican farmer brought to tears by the helplessness and plight of his situation. The other cow from yesterday was on its feet and looks much brighter, although other animals in the pen still look weak and on the edge.

I post-mortemed the cow – she was completely anaemic throughout all her internal organs and her rumen was full of the worthless short chop straw that the farmer feeds them. He has nothing else and cant afford any better quality feed. The best bit about doing the post mortem was that it helped confirmed the theory that the problem these cows are facing is basically starvation and inadequate nutrition.

The way forward from this was to deliver him lots of food – in fact we ordered far more than will appear on the programme and we didn’t scrimp on it. All of us were choked with emotion for this poor man and his animals are desperate need of help. I jabbed them all with vitamins to perk them up, a couple got some hardcore steroid to help things along and then we embarked on the plan to feed them well.
 

Back at the sanctuary – couple of cases before driving back to the community that we visited three days ago. The horse leg is looking great which is a big relief.