Snow and freezing rain were falling fast on Tanner Sorrell’s family farm in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. Tanner went out to check on a pregnant cow and saw that she had already given birth but was struggling to clean her newborn calf.
“I don’t know what it is about bad weather, but it seems like it triggers labor,” Tanner said, adding that another calf had been born a few nights before.
The other new mother had been able to clean off her calf and warm her up quickly, but this mother and baby seemed to be in trouble as the temperatures fell to the single digits that night, Jan. 24.
Tanner was reluctant to take the calf away from her mother, so he gave them another 40 minutes to see how they fared. He called his papaw, who Tanner said taught him everything he knows about farming, and his grandfather told him to trust his instincts.
“It’s a tough decision to make,” Tanner said. “You don’t know if you’re doing right or wrong. You’re just doing the best you can.”
The family had lost a calf to frostbite the year before, so he didn’t want to take any chances when the situation didn’t improve.
He and his wife, Macey, brought the freezing calf inside, with Macey driving their truck to the house and Tanner holding the calf in the truck bed.
They brought the calf into their utility room, and Macey did her best to dry her off using towels and a hair dryer on low heat. Tanner gave the calf a bottle of colostrum and then went out to the barn.
When Tanner came back, he found the newborn calf inside cuddling with his kids. Macey had brought her in and let her on the couch.
“I wasn’t going to be the party pooper if they were having fun,” Tanner said. “They’re only kids one time.”
The Sorrells’ son, Gregory, who is 3, named the calf Sally after a character in his favorite movie, “Cars.”
Sally was a welcome distraction following the sudden death of Tanner’s father the week before the snowstorm. His funeral was on Jan. 23.
“The calf really helped with that,” Tanner said.
The Sorrells’ daughter, Charlee Jo, 2, sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to the calf and gave her kisses.
“It’s been a really heavy time for our family,” Macey said in a text message. “Bringing that little calf inside and watching the kids cuddle her … it gave us something happy to focus on.”
The kids eventually fell asleep on the couch, and Macey snapped a few photos of them cuddling with the baby animal. She posted them on Facebook, not thinking much of it. Bringing animals indoors is nothing out of the ordinary for the Sorrells.
“We have cows, donkeys, chickens, turkeys,” Macey said. “You never know what’ll be in the house.”
Someone saw the pictures and sent them to the local news station, WKYT, which reported the story.
After letting Sally warm up overnight, Tanner brought her back to her mother early Sunday morning. He worried the mother wouldn’t take her back because of his intervention, and that they would have to raise the calf by bottle — but as soon as the heifer heard her calf mooing, she ran right over.
Tanner set them up in the barn to keep warm until the bad weather passed, filling their space with hay, straw, sweet feed and fresh water. He even set up a camera so his family could keep a close watch on Sally. Both mother and baby are doing well.
Tanner said he hopes that growing up with experiences like this will be good for his kids, who are already learning how to take care of the farm animals.
“I just want my kids to have the best childhoods possible and learn where our food comes from, and that we do love those animals,” Tanner said.
Many of the animals on the farm are raised and sold, but the Sorrells said that Sally is staying put.
“She’s a permanent resident here,” Macey said, adding that she’d already ordered a tag with Sally’s name on it.
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