The Story of Khamkoon

KK was born into the world on August 1st, 2021.  Unfortunately, KK's mother had some complications and passed away a few hours after having him.  However, she was fortunately able to give him his 1st few milk feedings containing colostrum.  Colostrum is essential in helping a new born calf's immune system fight bacteria and infections, without it a newborn calf would not survive. The next morning we go out to check on the herd as normal and notice the mama has died but there is no sign of the baby, but then all of a sudden we see the little brown fury head pop up next to her.  At that moment we realize we are going to have to catch him if he's going to have any chance at survival. Easier said than done because even at just a day old he's too fast and agile for us.  He ends up getting through the fence line into another pasture containing cattle.  He mixes in with the mama cow hoping to get some warm milk, but the mama cow realizes he is not one of them so he gets kicked several times by the cattle. 

What we think is going to be a disaster ends up being a blessing. As I mingle in with the cattle, he walks right up to me and I grab him to place him in the stock trailer.  While inside the trailer and at only 1 day old, his natural wild instinct takes over as his head dips and tail raises up, (which is the Bison's warning sign to back off) he takes charge a few times at the both of us. We take him to the local large animal vet to get him looked over and amazingly he is ok.  The vet ends up tube feeding him some goat colostrum milk just in case, which is due to goat milk being very high in nutrition. As we head back to the ranch, we stop and get some powdered goat milk as we just inherited being this little one's maternal figure.  We set him up in our large enclosed pen that will protect him from the night predators and inside there is a small shelter to protect him from the weather elements.

Bottle feeding is something that has to be taught to the baby calf and they need to be fed 3 to 4 times daily.  This usually takes a few days for the baby to learn and in the meantime he has to be tube fed, which involves a plastic container with a small clear hose on the end. I would hold him and gently slide the hose down his throat and into his stomach then flip the plastic container with the goat milk upside down, gravity then takes care of the rest putting the milk into his stomach, it's not a fun experience for him. KK took 2 days to learn about the bottle, at each feeding I would try the bottle 1st from massaging his throat with the nipple in his mouth but he would never take it like that but he was getting the concept of what needed to be done.  By this time KK thought of me as his mama and would follow me everywhere so I came up with this idea. I leaned over petting him with my left hand then took the bottle in my right hand behind my back and in-between my legs to resemble his mama's nipple and once he saw it his natural instincts kicked in and he went to town. Mission accomplished now every feeding went like this for the next couple of weeks until we could just show him the bottle and he was ready. As KK grows stronger and stronger each day running and playing around like a kid would he seems very happy. 

As the rest of the bison herd cycles back to the property KK is on, they all gathered at the pen where he is located.  Both sides of the fence look a little confused as several different grunt sounds go back and forth, I have always wondered what was said.  As the days go by and both sides seem to be at ease with each other, we decide to let KK out with the rest the herd. It has been said bison herds have a very strong family tie and sometimes they will take in a orphan.  We could tell KK very much wanted to be accepted by the herd so we decided to give it a shot. KK's 1st day out of the pen was a tough one. Bison also have a strong pecking order. The alpha male and alpha female run the herd followed by the rest, unfortunately the littlest ones are at the bottom of the totem pole.  He still knew when feeding time was and in the evening we would put him back in his pen.  After the first day I didn't think he would want to go back to the herd but as soon as he finished his morning bottle he was ready to go back out so I opened the gate and off he went. This continued for a month and each day the herd accepted KK more and more. One day we finally saw 1 of the most amazing things.  One of the mama's had taken KK in as her own, feeding him and looking over him.  The best part of it was that it was his aunt and she had a baby already. KK's aunt was now his mama and his cousin was now his sister. This all happened 2 years ago and she still looks over him today.  He still remembers us and will even come up to greet us but when mama has had enough she will grunt calling him to come back to the herd.  KK is very special to us because everything he has endured and has had to overcome.  We hope all you enjoyed his story, pictures and videos and we will keep y'all updated on his progress.