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It is said that the Gustafson family, came from Minnesota to Florida with a single cow. They started a dairy and today have one of the largest in the Southeast.
Pete Gustafson was about seventy when I first met him. He had "retired" from dairy operations and had assumed the duties associated with disposing of the three thousand or so calves born to the dairy each year. His approach was to have an open auction each day when the calves were separated from their mothers and offered for sale. Some days there would be only a single calf and on others the barn would be full with upwards of one hundred. Buyers would come from as far away as Tennessee and the Carolinas to get these Holstein and Holstein cross as well as jersey, brown Swiss and other calves. It was well know that they were of the best quality and having spent an extra day or so with the mother in the birthing pasture, had consumed their fill of protective antibodies in the first milk (colostrum). Now Pete tried to be fair and see that buyers obtain the calves that they had come for, but sometimes the number was just not adequate for the demand. Other days, the selection would not be what the buyers wanted yet Pete had to make sure there were no calves left in the barn at the end of the day. So, he found ways of linking sale of a desirable calf with one or more that was less attractive. Usually he succeeded, otherwise the calf would have to be killed and go to the renderer who called on the dairy each day.
One particular day, I was buying calves and toward the end of the auction, Pete brought out a bright, jersey/Hereford cross heifer that had been stepped on by her mother. Her left shoulder was crushed. But somehow, the calf managed to get around on three legs, dangling the other. How she could get up is still hard to imagine, since cattle shift their weight to their front while kneeling, then push up with their hind legs until they have their weight over their hind legs. Then they with a swinging motion, raise their front legs and are standing erect. Doing this with a single front leg seems impossible. And, the pain would have been excruciating except with the natural pain killers, the endmorphins that are produced in the brain.
Who would buy this calf. The other buyers were leaving to pick up their calves. And soon, just Pete the calf and I were left. Now it was obvious that Pete had already gone the extra mile for this calf. Usually they were removed from the mother as soon as they were spotted in the pasture. Maybe, a cow and calf would escape detection and the calf might be three or four days old before they were picked up and separated. But this calf was different, I could see that she was probably a week to ten days old. Pete had simply not been able to separate them. He now had to face facts. Finally he said; "Five dollars". Most calves sold for forty five to one-hundred. This one actually had no value. But I thought, "why not". If she survived, perhaps I could sell her at a great discount, but still a profit, with the others I raised. And Pete really wanted her to go. (If I had said no, he would probably have given her to me, but from my point of view, that would not have been a proper business arrangement. Pete knew this as well.) So on the truck she went.
This “softness” of Pete may have been his recognition of what true pain was. He walked with the aid of a stick. Some would say it was to hasten the calves (and the handlers) about the arena, but it was obvious to those who cared to notice that some days he hobbled a bit more than others.
Another time, we were in the midst of an active bidding for a good bunch of calves and there were a lot of them, when the auction came to a screeching halt. There overhead on one of the cross members that held the roof up, walked a mother cat, kitten in mouth and dangling over the rail to the floor some twenty or so feet below. We all silently watched her make her way across the beam to the other side and to a “better” place for her kitten. When she disappeared, Pete resumed his offering of calves, and just as suddenly, the crowd grew quite. Here came mother cat, walking back across the beam to the other side. She was gone and another calf or so was sold, and sure enough, here she came again with another dangling kitten. Stop. Wait. Return to bidding. Stop, Wait. Return to bidding. Stop, Wait, .... When she had made the trip with six kittens, the move was apparently over and the rest of the calves were sold. An auction which usually took less than an hour took maybe two at most. But no one complained, least of all Pete Gustafson.
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