Cows get rehab chance at farm near Diamond

Trevor Renstrom, full-time employee at Nickle Bush, LLC Rehab for Cows, carries Maddy, an injured calf, for treatment.

Daaron Hamilton pets one of his calves at his family farm near Diamond where he and his nephew, Ryan Hamilton, have gone into business together to treat injured and malnourished cows.

Cows on Endicott Road near Diamond are creating a stir.

Daaron and Ryan Hamilton have started Rehab for Cows at their family farm.

"We're just getting fired up," said Daaron, who has been a hoof trimmer for cows for 13 years.

The stir was caused as people driving by the farm noticed the cows, many of which are skinny or limping around.

"They're not seeing the typical cow.

Some people were concerned about animal welfare," said Daaron.

The stir was calmed with the addition of a sign outside the farm to let people know what was going on, Daaron said.

Daaron wants people to know that he and Ryan, who is his nephew, are not running a veterinary program, noting that they are helping the cows with an array of problems from back, hip and foot injuries to malnourishment.

A lot of it is experimental right now.

"Working on dairies, I would see cows I believed I could help.

Dairies just don't have the time to tinker with them," he said.

"This started out of seeing these cows that needed help and believing I could help them." For Ryan, a banker, much of Rehab for Cows is new to him.

He said he is more on the financial and business side of things.

Right now, the Hamiltons have nine cows and 11 calves, all with some sort of injury that they along with their full-time employee Trevor Renstrom work to rehab.

They have lost some cows along the way, too.

"We're going to have loss.

Some of the cows we're taking are some of the ones they haven't been able to fix—they're at the end of the line," said Daaron.

The cows come mostly directly from dairies, and some of them are bought, others are given to them.

Daaron said the cows mostly react well to the treatment and rehab.

"One of our main goals is to turn as many of these animals that would have gone to beef into a productive animal," he said.

The business is stationed on the Hamilton family farm, which has been in the family for six generations—since 1877.

Right now, the farm is in the Conservation Reserve Program.

"We're about as native as it gets," said Daaron.

"For the last several years, [the farm] hasn't really been in production.

We're wanting to turn it back into a productive farm.

This is where it starts." Daaron and Ryan both said the project is still in an experimental stage.

"Come talk to us in a year and we'll have a lot more to tell you," said Ryan, noting that he believes they will be able to have a better vision at that time and really see how the cows have taken to what is being done for them.

After being up and running for about two months, Daaron said he enjoys what is happening with these cows and being able to be with them and help them.

He said there is no bad day out there with the cows.

"It's kind of one of those feel-good stories.

The cows get to go to a happy place," he said.

"We have no idea where it's going to go.

One of my beliefs is that if we take care of the cows, the cows will take care of us."