Rancher Rescues Calf Stuck In Badger Hole

An Alberta rancher rescued a lost calf from what he called the most bizarre incident in his career.

Brad Osadczuk says he had been searching for the calf for a day on a large native pasture near Jenner, Alta. At around 8 p.m. Friday, Osadczuk told Canada’s Global News he stumbled across the calf with the cow nearby.

“I knew from experience that he wouldn’t leave that area and she was trying to tell us something,” the 47-year-old rancher to Global News.

This is a first for me- we had a calf missing for over a day, his mom finally showed us where he was. All I could see is his nose down this badger hole. pic.twitter.com/a6c5sVZf0X — Brad Osadczuk (@bradosadczuk) May 18, 2019

“She kept on going back to this spot. When you walk up, you couldn’t see anything. It just was prairie grass. I happened to walk up to a badger hole and I look down, and about 12 inches down into the hole, I could see his nose down there,” Osadczuk said.

“So I kind of had to dig around to get ahold of his front legs and I pulled him out of there. He was quite stuck. He wiggled and screamed enough until he kind of worked himself as far down as he possibly could into this big badger hole.”

 This is a first for me- we had a calf missing for over a day, his mom finally showed us where he was. All I could see is his nose down this badger hole.

The calf was wedged in so tightly that Osadczuk thought something more sinister was at play.

“I was wondering how he got so far down there and if something was trying to drag him down there, whether it was a coyote or a badger or something.” Osadczuk said the animal is doing well, just exhausted after being stuck in the hole for 12 to 20 hours.

“After I got him out, [the calf’s mom] came right up and was taking care of him,” Osadczuk said. “We were quite amazed in all the years that we’ve been ranching, and friends and family have been ranching, no one’s ever seen anything quite that crazy.”