Bond - The little calf
with sad eyes
An animal-loving woman fetched firewood from a farmer and asked him if she could visit the animals in the stable.
In a calf box she discovered a small bull - calf, much smaller than all the others, who looked at her with big, questioning eyes. He was born a few weeks too early, so he was probably smaller than all the other calves in the stable.
However, he shared one thing with many calves born in the dairy industry: that common fate of calves that are separated from the cow immediately after calving, not allowed to feel any body heat, not allowed to drink from their mothers - just standing or lying in their stall alone and without social contact, waiting to see what's coming.
The little bull calf enjoyed the caresses of the woman and her attention. He closed his eyes with the miserable long eyelashes and seemed to feel very comfortable. It was all the worse when she stopped petting him and he looked sadly after her.
"What must going on in an animal..."
The calves are born, immediately separated from the mother. The mother hears them crying, but can not get to them and vice versa. The animal-loving woman could not forget the questioning eyes of the calf. It should be allowed to live like all calves that are allowed to stand with their mothers and not be sold at auction to a fattening farm when it is only a few weeks old, only to be taken to the slaughterhouse when it is about 20 months old.
Small and sad, the woman had the calf in her head and her thoughts turned in circles as to understand how she could help it.
She made an inquiry to Gut Aiderbichl, because she knew that this was probably the only institution where the little bull would be taken in and cared for until the natural end of his life.
Bond found place at the Moosfeldhof of Gut Aiderbichl
Beaming with joy and with a tear-stifled voice, Bond's rescuer Christian Kögl, estate manager of Moosfeldhof, tells how she discovered the small, sad Bond.
In a tear-stifled voice, she kept talking about how the mother cow and calf feel when they are separated after calving. I wonder what it's like when the cow and the newborn calf "moo" around the barn, looking for each other, smelling each other, but not coming together. Christian listened to her and could understand her very well.
At the Moosfeldhof, little Bond walked slowly and timidly from the van. He knew the smell of his rescuer, but there were other people he had not yet noticed. Slowly, he takes in the new surroundings until suddenly he seems to break through a wall and jumps around in the grass full of joy.
Why the name Bond?
The last three numbers of his ear tag are...007. So it was clear, this will be our Bond, who drinks milk and not Martini like James Bond. Our Bond is a daredevil, a charmer and has very quickly settled into the group of his peers. His eyes do not look so sad anymore. Bond was spared the fattening pen and thus also the slaughter.
The story of little Bond is meant to make people think in many ways: animals have feelings, keeping cows and calves together should be encouraged, more knowledge about animal husbandry would curb meat consumption.
