I can identify with that parable. Back when I was in high school, I worked on a farm. It wasn't a big operation. We milked about 30 or 35 cows every day. There were another 10 or 15 that weren't milking, and 8 or 10 young ones.
Cows often give birth out in the field.
Usually at night. We'd try to keep the ones that were due in a field close in to the barn, but sometimes they'd be in a pasture half a mile away, or more. One morning, one of the cows that had been expecting came in, and she looked deflated. She'd given birth sometime in the night. But there was no calf with her.