Sorrow

Our heifer gave birth to her first calf (and ours) sometime in the past 24 hours. Bull calf. Full-term. Beautiful black & white patterned hide. Also dead.

Not sure how or why. The cow is fine; doesn't look to have suffered any physical trauma, and she completed the birth, so I don't think it was a malpresentation. We didn't find the placenta/umbilical cord, but the cow doesn't look like she was nursed, either, so we don't know if the calf was born dead or died shortly after.

This sucks.

Edited to add: What I meant to say when I started this post is that sorrow is watching a mother who won't come and eat because she's too busy standing guard over the body of her dead offspring. Species is irrelevant.