Tom Grieve could hear a calf bawling, but the only thing he could see was snow.
A storm that walloped southeastern Saskatchewan the weekend of April 30-May 1 had piled the snow as high as the two-bale windbreak he had made and about 15 metres out from it.
The Fillmore area farmer already knew he had lost 10 calves, two yearlings and a cow in the storm that began with rain, then freezing rain and finally intense wind and blinding snow.
A head count after the storm raged for 30 hours revealed that Grieve was three calves short.
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Two cows lingered near the large snowdrift.
Grieve checked on the other side of the bales and determined there was no calf nearby. Then he heard the sound again, definitely coming from under the snow.
“I thought I better get to digging,” Grieve said.
He began carefully pushing the snow away and within about a metre of the bales a small hole appeared.
A calf was standing inside.
“I got the shovel and dug him out, and he just walked out of there and straight to his mother and started to suck,” Grieve said.
Thinking the others might also be in the snow, he began to push away the snow from the entire 45-metre windbreak.
Suddenly, a calf rolled out of a small nest in the snow in the tractor’s path. It, too, headed straight for its mom.
“They’re just as healthy as could be,” Grieve said May 9. “We’re watching them closely.”
The third calf stumbled out of the bush five days after the storm, looking weak and thin but happy to see its mother.
“That was a storm like I’d never seen,” Grieve said.
He and many others would like to never see one again.
Hundreds of calves are dead as a result.
Kevin Woods was still finding dead calves last week near Moosomin as the snow melted. He estimated at least 100 were gone and predicted the number would climb.
“As the snow drifts melt along the fence lines, we’re finding dead calves every day now,” he said.
Woods calves 3,700 cows and said 1,500 calves were on the ground when the storm hit.
“Percentage wise there’s a lot of people that fared a lot worse than we did,” he said.
“I heard of 100-cow-calf operations that lost 20 and 30 of their calves. That’s just horrendous.”
He expects more losses because many calves were affected by pneumonia and the stress of the storm.
Saskatchewan producers who experience losses as a result of storms are eligible for compensation if their municipalities declare disasters. The Provincial Disaster Assistance Program pays a minimum of $400 per calf.
Producers must have proof of loss. Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association manager Chad MacPherson said the storm affected at least 25 rural municipalities.
