Likely lost a new cow today

Philip d · Nov 18, 2016

Just unloaded her and she wasn't in the barn 20 minutes and the bull knocked her down and she spraddled. Loaded her in a bucket and placed her on a straw pack pen. There's about a 95% chance she'll never stand again. Days like today I wish I never gave up a chance at university to look after cows.

rrlund · Nov 18, 2016

Stupid things like that happen so quick. It just makes you sick. I remember hearing one time about a $25,000 registered Holstein that somebody bought that had something like that happen right after they got her home.

I've got one that I'm afraid I'll have to get back in the barn and call the vet for again. She had some serious swelling in her face about 5-6 weeks ago. We had her penned and on antibiotics for two weeks. She was eating half way decent,so I turned her back out. The swelling had pretty much gone away,but she still had a small lump on the right side above her sinus. I noticed this afternoon that it's swollen pretty bad again. She's gonna haul up and die on me yet.

Janicholson · Nov 18, 2016

I sympathize with you and the cow. best of luck. Jim

Philip d · Nov 18, 2016

Ya the worst things usually happen to the best ones too. What happened to your cow? Was it lumpy jaw?

rrlund · Nov 18, 2016

No,wasn't lumpy jaw. She said there appeared to be a small laceration on the side of her tongue,but that doesn't explain why she kept that bump on the top of her nose,unless there was just some infection that was walled off in an abscess there or something and it let go.

farmerwithmutt · Nov 18, 2016

A friend had a cow like that an old vet told him to check in her mouth sometimes part of the cud gets stuck between the gum and lip ever afterwards if she got that way that's all he had to do is reach in and pull it out. I always wish things were that easy but with cattle there not.

rrlund · Nov 18, 2016

I had one another time that was swollen like that. The vet got digging in there and found a crushed soda can stuck way up in her cheek. Cows manage to find about as many different ways to mess themselves up as there are cows to begin with.

JD Seller · Nov 18, 2016

My Grand Father made a harness that fit under the cow's belly and up across their hips. He had a track on the bottom of the hay loft floor that had a trolley on it. He would winch them into a standing position and then hook a chain into the harness he made. He would let them down at night and up again in the mornings. they could walk back and forth along the trolley. He managed to save more than half of the ones that split.

When I was around 8 or 9 he rigged up an engine and a concrete saw blade. He cut a cross hatch pattern in all of the concrete runs and slabs on the farm. That pretty well stopped any splits happening.

He was always saying that you could not lose one if you did not own any.

coonie minnie · Nov 18, 2016

Is there a float tank in your neighborhood????

Those Aqua Cow tanks do wonders if you can float her in warm water.

Bob Harvey · Nov 18, 2016

Cows ain't very smart.

Philip d · Nov 18, 2016

There used to be one years ago I don't think it's around now anymore though,they work pretty good sometimes too

Philip d · Nov 18, 2016

That's a good idea too that he had,our clinic has a hip lifter that can help too,if she looks willing to try in the morning I'll grab it before they close at lunchtime tomorrow.

Philip d · Nov 18, 2016

It could have been that? Abscesses can be pretty nasty

Dave H (MI) · Nov 18, 2016

Daughter came home today and said they had her on rounds in the pathology lab today. About two dozen calves presented with a mysterious fever. One died and was in for necropsy. Whoever de-horned this calf burned clear thru the skull on both sides. Now they are looking to see if all of them have the same issue and if it is the cause of the fever.

Philip d · Nov 18, 2016

Wow that sounds awful for the poor calves,hopefully they'll end up ok.

farmerwithmutt · Nov 18, 2016

Neighbor was gone and let the kids take care of things and he had two bulls and one old cow. I happened to be going by and seen her down and asked if they needed help naturally being Amish there was no way of getting in touch with there father we tried but no way so I asked anther Amish what he thought about it. We rolled her and heard the pop so it was decided to butcher. Unfortunately this was a Amish that didn't like tractor driving so I had to walk to a neighbor that was also gone on vacation and borrowed a tractor. When I got back he had shot her and started to butcher he thought bale twine would hold lifting they weren't. Finally got her ready for transport and dropped her in a small Nissan truck. As we were cutting down the back roads to Benny the butcher he asked me why not go through town I explained to him that we were overloaded and a dead cow in the back that neither of us owned would you be willing to explain this to the cops ? He said this roads ok. The butcher said latter it was broken so it turned out to be fortuitous that what we did and it wasn't a total loss. One thing that happened was the word got out count your cows and tractors before you go on vacation .

GregCO · Nov 18, 2016

WOW. Sounds like someone was way too aggressive with the horn burner. I have done hundreds and never had that happen.

Greg

rdandersom · Nov 19, 2016

We had one slip in her stall and break her pelvis once. Really good registered holstein that had been bought about a year before. Bad luck does seem to target they best ones sometimes.

Bruce from Can. · Nov 19, 2016

Tough break , another good reason not to keep a bull. I have bred A.I. for 36 years now, there are more than enough other things that can go wrong , without the help of some darn bull. Bruce

rrlund · Nov 19, 2016

"As we were cutting down the back roads to Benny the butcher he asked me why not go through town"

Reminds me of Matt. He took a cow to MSU in the back of an open pickup for autopsy. He got lost on campus and ended up down by the law school,driving around with the cow's feet sticking up in the air. LOL

Tech 7 · Nov 19, 2016

I can relate to that kind of pain. Back in the early 80's the farmer where I worked was coming up short of milk (Bruce you will know how serious this is with the Quota system) Anyway we had to buy some fresh or up close cows fast. We brought two home this one day, good looking cows in milk for about 3-5 days. The one stepped on a teat between unloading her and the evening milking, never did milk all 4 quarters. The other one developed mastitis (septic) worst I had ever seen and died 10 days later. Was it my money or cows? No, but 35 years later I still get emotional about that incident.

cowranch · Nov 19, 2016

I have this, https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30e07a99-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5 . It works well on cows that are just weak or sore, with minimal injury (legs sprawled backwards while crossing ice for example). I've stood up some cows a couple or so times a day. After a day or week or whatever, some get better. You can use it to hold them up for a short time.

I've used this kind on one cow, hung her for about a month and she got better. The vet has similar to this, and they will rent them out. https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30e0768a-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5

Likely lost a new cow today

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Member

Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Member

Similar threads