I'm afraid the worst has happened...who's to blame?

it's with a heavy heart that I come to you guys today on the Stony Ridge Farm we've lost a calf I don't know what happened I don't know if Predators got to it I have no idea this is Mom right here mom is very upset come along today we are on a that's Mom calling out we're on a mad search for a calf that's missing I feel like it's too late I feel like it's going to be gone [Music] ston Stony Rich Farm hey there folks this is Josh Stony rich farmer we've got an upset cow of course we've got an upset cow this cow neglected to round up her Cal at some point over the last two days and I don't know what the heck has gone on here so that calf and it's cow or excuse me cow number 201 we've moved across the farm across the public roadway from a pasture that was way over here to a pasture right here we had eight total calves okay and now we have seven I have no idea what has happened with her calf and she's been balling and calling for it for about 24 hours now yesterday I went over and I looked and today I'm going to take you guys along and we're going to go look for this calf I have no idea what has happened whether a predator got the calf whether it fell into a hole somewhere whether it fell into a pipe in the creek I have no idea what's G on with this animal so today we've got to go feed our animals here and then we're going to zip over and figure out what the heck went on with this calf I have no idea so let's go on the Mad search maybe just maybe stick around to the end maybe we'll find the calf I'm really hoping we do especially for Mom she's so distressed right now all right guys in case you don't know this is a regenerative Farm we're rolling out hay to the cows here in just a second we'll go ahead and get the ATV started up right here maybe here we go fire that up and let it warm up and we're going to drive this hay bale into the pasture here and we'll take the hay bale loose and uh roll it out to the sorry come on come so here's the scenario guys if you're new to the farm Channel if you're new to the farm this is exactly the way things go in the winter time we unroll hay to our cows we unroll hay on various paddocks a paddock is just a section of land the cows are on about seven acres right here okay so this is a larger Paddock than we normally do normally our paddocks are about a 1 acre size that being said I put the cows out on a much larger 22 acre section about 2 days ago we've been slowly moving across the farm because we're all out of hay on the other side of the farm currently we have seven calves on the ground actually eight calves on the ground so it's calving season and this is Mom who's stressed out right here so this is number 2011 and you can see her milk sack is swollen just a little bit she's probably going to go to the fence here and call to her calf yep exactly exactly what's going on so this is pretty common for a cow that has lost her calf and we have only lost two caves in the whole time that we've had the farm here and we're on our third or fourth year of cing she's very upset you can see her mannerisms she's just looking out over the hill looking for her baby and she's again very upset she's on guard you can see like very distrusting of me distrusting of everything and what had happened here was when we moved across I took a headcount of all the calvs that needed to move across with their moms she's really upset so we moved across the road right here we'll just take you down there to the road section we had to cross a public roadway we just built this new crossing cattle crossing and showed you guys how it was all built so we came across the road into the new section of pasture over here and she hid her baby some time within that period of time I did a headcount she hid her baby and her baby will not come out I can't find it I can't get it to come out I have ridden all over and walked all over and we're actually going to take the Drone and we're going to fly it up in the air here in just a minute and we're going to fly over everything because a drone is pretty much an indispensable piece of equipment to have on your farm especially when you're in a situation like this so they came across from that pasture right across through here and somehow some way that calf came up missing yesterday was the day that we moved so we've still got a window of opportunity to save this calf yesterday was the day that we moved so we're going to zip around all over the place first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to toss a drone up in the air and maybe the Drone will be able to find it all we're looking for is a black Speck but gosh I just hope we can find it typically the the calf would call out and what happens in a situation like this is that the calf is over there it's hidden it's by itself maybe it fell off in a hole somewhere maybe a predator there could have been a coyote right there in the pasture as soon as we moved it could have grabbed it I have no idea please guys don't play the blame game here there's no no reason to play the blame game on me or on the cow or on anybody this is just part of farming and part of ranching and sometimes you just don't know what happens to an animal so let's toss a drone up in the air first and see what we can find over here all right guys you can see as we fly up in the air right here that this is a pretty large section of pasture that the cows were in I was concerned about moving all these new young moms over into this larger section of pasture and with good reason I'm finding out so what I have to do here is I'm going to fly the drone over each little section of woods and I really think that this calf was up here in this Pine Thicket so we're going to really concentrate on this Pine Thicket area it's where the thickest brush debris and grass is so let's fly over real quick and see what we can [Music] now we're over top of the pine Thicket and you can see right there I don't see any black spots in there that might be a calf guys let me know post a comment down there if you see anything that I'm not seeing I do see however a deer bedded down up in the uh Pine Forest right there that's pretty interesting so there's at least one deer bedded down up there I don't know maybe the calf buddied up with that deer we're going to keep on looking and see what we [Music] find [Music] so we're noo on the Drone guys I cannot find that calf with the Drone buddy doesn't come over to the cows he's very curious he doesn't come over when I feed the cows however buddy is coming out free go pee go pee pee that's our routine with Buddy every time we come out of the kennel no matter in how big of a hurry we are we make sure that he goes to the bathroom okay if we don't don't do that then he'll poop right in the middle of the driveway come here sit it sit we got to go find a calf we've got a missing calf okay you going to go help me let's go help me out we're going to enter the pasture right here by the outdoor kitchen and if you guys don't know about the outdoor kitchen the shop right there I'll post a video link at the end of this one we're in the pasture where the cows were my thought is to systematically start at the top of the hill over here where the pine Thicket was and then there's another pine Thicket right here good boy while I was searching yesterday I came in here and I did a lot of mowing I pushed back some of the brush and debris in hopes that I would scare up the calf I was about 3 hours of work yesterday yesterday trying to scare up this calf by getting into this debris right here but simply didn't stir the calf up so as I'm riding I'm looking down through the woods here for any sign of something black stay tuned the final place we're going to check is going to be the pipe down at the bottom of the hill to see if maybe the calf climbed in the pipe Cales have a very strange desire to get into water and I I don't know why that strange desire is there but they like to get into water and they like to get into trouble all right buddy sniff him out sniff him out we're going to go up in that Pine Thicket right there I see something black up there you smell poop you smell him he's got his nose up in the air smell him boy came through yesterday I cut all this brush and debris down so we can get up through here search a little bit more you smell them what you got on all right we're going to stop the four-wheeler at this point and going up through here a little bit see what we can find go ahead find them see if you can find them boy I've taken buddy after I went deer hunting and couldn't find a deer and Buddy would find them right away so if there is either remnants or calf in this Thicket buddy will find it is he up there is he up in there huh help me find him help me find him it's just so thick in here guys you can only see about 20 ft into the brush and again I came up here here yesterday this took hours to do and I know I would have jumped that calf but we're just taking another walk just to make sure I can hear Mama balling from across the way what you think that's the black thing that we saw earlier so we got buzzards in the air we've got buzzards flying in the area all right let's go back come on I walked the entire fence line yesterday the problem is that this calf could be moving it could be getting up it could be going somewhere it could be moving and it's it's small it's it's probably it's weeks old we shouldn't be having this problem with a weeks old calf unless we've had a health problem that's caused it to be down and lost in the woods or Predators got them we're going to try something here Matt Matt sometimes just calling out like that sometimes you can bring mom back over I could bring mom back over and see if she could find them but it's going to be tough to get both of them back across the road that deer we saw bed down was right over here Matt I hear I hear something back in there hey do you hear something budd's on pretty high alert what is it what is it what is it boy what is it you see something over there it must be a deer or something so we're on the very top of the hill now guys over looking this Pine Thicket really thick with brush so we got sections of fencing like this right here where a predator could easily get under this fence is not Predator proof and a small calf could get underneath it but very very doubtful especially as thick as it is up in here I'm going to bring in some goats here pretty soon and they'll take all this out something black right over there but it may be a stump come on come on let's look in here there's cow Trails all through here where the cow's been pushing way through these briers get them go ahead see if you can find them ah there a rabbit come on yeah it was a rabbit people fuss at me about habitat all the time on the farm they don't understand what we have here for habitat for wildlife and deer um this is habitat 101 right here I do need to come in and cut a few more pathways through so that I can access these areas a little easier when you move cattle during cing season into thickets or Brushy spots like this you're asking for trouble I guess you're just asking for it but I had to get them through here in order to get them to the other side of the farm there was no choice oh good boy good boy keep it up we're going to get back on the four-wheeler I see no more buzzards in the sky gosh if I had buzzards flying around I'd know right where to go cuz they'd be bothering this Cal that's the thing that I am really concerned about is that I'm not hearing or seeing any signs of uh buzzards or anything like that that would tell me that we've got a dead calf somewhere I don't know it's it's not normal this is not the normal scenario saying goodbye to the Pine Thicket so a calf could fall down into some of these root balls right here where we cleared the pasture so I'm pretty much searching those root balls we're going to step into the Forest right there this is my second most suspicious area these are some trees we didn't cut when we cut the Timber and this is not something that should be in my pasture galvanized fencing spray paint go up there go up there there you go so we call this area Fern Gully there's a lot of ferns and stuff growing up in here and I have found that animals like to die in this area it's really strange it's like a I don't know there's some sort of draw for them up here I found my neighbor's dog they were missing their dog for weeks and weeks and weeks and I found him right up here he just laid down and passed away he was an older dog so what we're doing now we're scanning here there's some root balls up here I don't see anything looks like we got a big tree uprooted right there and we're looking up in these little Caverns what you can't see on the camera is that I can see a little better than you can up into these little caves there's basically little caves underneath all that debris right there see the cows have been down here pretty regularly they were only in here for about 24 hours like I said and moved over to the other side but a calf could get hung up or hidden hey go ahead go ahead over there you go calf could get hung up or hidden right in here and we just never know it so I'm looking up in here like up under a log this calf could have hidden anywhere and he still could be hidden up here this also makes great Den material for foxes and coyotes and all sorts of predators so not only groundhogs and rabbits but foxes and coyotes and predators too and good places for calves To Hide A lot of times an animal will find water to die I don't know if any of you guys have been deer hunters a lot of times an animal will go to water and lay down and die if you injure a deer they'll often go to a place like this buddy is peeing which shows me that there may have been a predator in this area hey come here boy come here get some water get that water Buddy's hot come here come on come on get that water there you go lay down in there there you go cool off a little bit there's a spring right here this is where water just bubbles up out of the ground literally water is just coming out of the ground right there we'll come down here and we're going to do some videos uh building some spring houses at some point we're going to continue to walk this Valley right here this would be the only place that we'd be able to find this calf is right in this Valley down through here the thing is even if we find remance of the calf we will know what happened I just don't know what happened this is the most mysterious serous cattle disappearance I did aliens land and take the calf in the middle of the night did the calf move across the way and I just can't find it I don't know I did a proper head count and that's what you're supposed to do when you move cows like that when you move them to a New Pasture you're supposed to do a good head count and I did a proper head count I don't know all right still checking our Waterway because again animals like to find a Waterway to hide or to pass away hey come here what's this this isn't deer it's way too big to be a deer but this is way too old that's a pelvis another femur I don't know if you guys have ever come upon a a fresh kill or a fresh a freshly dead animal one that's only been dead for 24 hours or so but there's always a mess all around it like the leaves are stirred up those bones right there are from something in the past okay we're down here almost to the house now this is the most extensive search that I performed just to let you guys know this is the most extensive search I've ever had to perform for any animal budd's peeing all over everywhere which tells me there might be a predator problem down here all right I told you guys the last place we're going to look is in this pipe this is not a pipe that that you've seen on the channel before this is a crossing a cattle crossing there's another bone I see another bone right there but we wouldn't be down to Bones just yet hey go ahead go in the pipe good boy go in that pipe go in the pipe good come on back come on come on good boy you thought Lassie was smart that's a smart dog right there this would be the closest point to the last known location of this calf when I did my head count this is where the calf was that's a good one for you right there boy yeah cool off drone search dog search not one sign at all guys it's a pretty sad day when you lose an animal on your farm and it's even more of a sad day when you don't know what the heck happened guys big followup awesome day here 2011's calf has appeared out of nowhere we've got her 2011's B baby just found its way over here we got to get it in the pen and see if it drinks with Mom awesome I totally thought we had lost this calf hasn't seen Mom in days two days I thought it was dead you made it Mom baby's drinking healthy awesome oh you know that baby's thirsty woohoo come thege br bring your kids living life pure and sweet that's the way supposed to be Stony r