A Kentucky farming family has warmed hearts online after opening not just their barn, but their home, to save a newborn calf from freezing temperatures.
Last weekend, as single-digit cold swept across Mount Sterling, Macey Sorrell and her husband Tanner stepped out at dusk to check on one of their pregnant cows. To their surprise, the calf had already been born and the bitter cold had taken its toll.
“She was just frozen. Her umbilical cord looked like a popsicle,” Sorrell recalled. “It was just frozen.”
Having lost a calf to frostbite the previous year, the couple knew they had to act fast. Rather than risk another loss, Sorrell did what came naturally to her as both a farmer and a mother, she carried the tiny animal straight into the family home.
“When we brought her in, she had ice on her,” she said. “I wiped her down, took out the blow dryer and warmed her up, and got her all fluffed out.”
The calf was placed on the couch to recover, quickly becoming an unexpected house guest. For the Sorrell children, however, it felt perfectly normal. Their three-year-old son, Gregory, simply climbed up beside the newborn to cuddle, as though it were any other bedtime companion.
“It was just the most natural thing,” Sorrell said, noting that the family is used to occasionally bringing animals indoors when they need extra care.
As the family settled in for the night, Sorrell snapped a photo of the cozy scene — two children asleep on the couch next to the rescued calf — a moment that has since charmed people across the internet.
By sunrise, the little calf, now named Sally by Gregory, was warm, healthy and ready to return outside to rejoin her mother. What could have been a heartbreaking loss instead became a story of quick thinking, compassion and the quiet kindness that defines farm life.
Sometimes, all it takes to weather a cold night is a warm home and an even warmer heart.