leppy

plural leppies

1. USslangA young animal, particularly a cow calf or bull calf, a lamb, or a colt, which has been abandoned or orphaned.

   Out on the range, he would have been a stunted leppy.

   2003, American Cowboy, volume 10, number 4, page 90

   2 more examples

   When those big bands take off, the mares never come back for those leppies. We were branding one time and saw a little bunch move out and a mom left a leppy behind.

   2006, Paula Morin, Honest Horses: Wild Horses in the Great Basin, page 105

   I have heard a famous rodeo announcer crack the same old joke every year, "A leppy is a little calf whose ma has died, and whose pa has run away with another cow."

   1978, Sarah E. Olds, Twenty Miles From a Match: Homesteading in Western Nevada, page 44

   Synonyms: bum calf, bummer, dogie