John Lightfoot on Luke 14:5

[Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, &c.] It being an undoubted maxim, "That they must deal mercifully with an Israelite's goods," the doctors in many things dispensed with the sabbath for the preservation of a beast. "They do not play the midwives with a beast that is bringing forth its young on a feast day, but they help it. How do they help it? They bear up the young one, that it doth not fall upon the ground: they bring wine, spirt it into the nostrils: they rub the paunch of the dam, so that it will suckle its young."

"A firstling if it fall into a ditch [on a fast day, or the sabbath], let the Mumcheh look into it; and if there be any blemish in it, let him take it out and kill it: if not, let him not kill it." He draws it out however, that it might not be lost. And so they deal with other beasts; only the Mumcheh is not made use of.