Post by sijae on Jul 24, 2008 13:05:17 GMT -5
Yesterday was a bad milking day and Mable ended up getting more grain than usual. I didn't think it was too much but today she's acting strangely and I'm worried.
Night before last she bellowed all night so I figured she was in heat. Yesterday morning she was looser and wetter and also pushier than usual and that confirmed it for me.
I had gone to a OAD milking schedule about 2 weeks ago and things were seeming fine with that. I was milking around 10am to let me get other chores done first and I really liked the new schedule. When I went to milk in the morning, our generator (which is our only source of power) seized up. I am a machine milker. I have nerve issues which make it nearly impossible to hand milk and when I try I'm not very good at it. So I decided to get the generator replaced and get home as fast as possible to milk mable instead of spending hours hand milking. I decided to go ahead and let her have her grain and cattle chow and then sent her back to her pen.
That worked out ok, but I was about 6 hours overdue to milk her when I got back. I milked her immediately when I got back but it didn't go well. My husband had moved the stanchion but not finished the job a few days before and so we were milking her just on a lead line which is possible but can be frustrating with her moving around. She must have run out of hay when I was gone and so she sucked down the grain too fast. She was being super pushy (from being in heat) and it was really crazy with kids, husband, generator, pushy cow etc.
Usually when she runs out that's it and she doesn't gert more but since I didn't have a stanchion to keep her still and she was way overdue milking, I decided to give her more grain to keep her still.
She ended up trying to eat it so fast that she started choking on it. She couldn't breath and her mouth was full of grain. I grabbed her mouth and tried to get grain out of it and we encouraged her to breath and she got past it. At that point I'd had it and decided to take a break even though she wasn't near milked out and we went down to visit our yak who'd just had a heifer calf a few hors before.
After about an hour I milked her again to get the rest of it out and this time gave her straight cattle cakes - no grain.
She seemed fine and was sent home.
This morning for milking she seemed way calm. I figured it was because she'd passed out of heat and was back to being sweet but when I gave her cattle cakes (no grain this morning either but she usually loves the cakes) she didn't touch it. Then I noticed that instead of calm she seemed listless and she laid her head in my arms (something she's never been calm enough to do) so at this point I'm worried and I looked at her closer and saw she seems like she could be bloated and her sides are round and hard. She was standing kind of curved with one side pushed out more (possibly in pain?).
So I'm a newbie with this cow stuff and all kinds of things are floating through my head. I'm worried I've done something to make her sick.
Right now I've got my kids outside walking her around as I know that's important for a horse that gets too much grain and figure it's similar with cows. I'm not sure what else to do.
Any thoughts?
My husband just came in and told me she just had some pretty loose stool.
Laura
Night before last she bellowed all night so I figured she was in heat. Yesterday morning she was looser and wetter and also pushier than usual and that confirmed it for me.
I had gone to a OAD milking schedule about 2 weeks ago and things were seeming fine with that. I was milking around 10am to let me get other chores done first and I really liked the new schedule. When I went to milk in the morning, our generator (which is our only source of power) seized up. I am a machine milker. I have nerve issues which make it nearly impossible to hand milk and when I try I'm not very good at it. So I decided to get the generator replaced and get home as fast as possible to milk mable instead of spending hours hand milking. I decided to go ahead and let her have her grain and cattle chow and then sent her back to her pen.
That worked out ok, but I was about 6 hours overdue to milk her when I got back. I milked her immediately when I got back but it didn't go well. My husband had moved the stanchion but not finished the job a few days before and so we were milking her just on a lead line which is possible but can be frustrating with her moving around. She must have run out of hay when I was gone and so she sucked down the grain too fast. She was being super pushy (from being in heat) and it was really crazy with kids, husband, generator, pushy cow etc.
Usually when she runs out that's it and she doesn't gert more but since I didn't have a stanchion to keep her still and she was way overdue milking, I decided to give her more grain to keep her still.
She ended up trying to eat it so fast that she started choking on it. She couldn't breath and her mouth was full of grain. I grabbed her mouth and tried to get grain out of it and we encouraged her to breath and she got past it. At that point I'd had it and decided to take a break even though she wasn't near milked out and we went down to visit our yak who'd just had a heifer calf a few hors before.
After about an hour I milked her again to get the rest of it out and this time gave her straight cattle cakes - no grain.
She seemed fine and was sent home.
This morning for milking she seemed way calm. I figured it was because she'd passed out of heat and was back to being sweet but when I gave her cattle cakes (no grain this morning either but she usually loves the cakes) she didn't touch it. Then I noticed that instead of calm she seemed listless and she laid her head in my arms (something she's never been calm enough to do) so at this point I'm worried and I looked at her closer and saw she seems like she could be bloated and her sides are round and hard. She was standing kind of curved with one side pushed out more (possibly in pain?).
So I'm a newbie with this cow stuff and all kinds of things are floating through my head. I'm worried I've done something to make her sick.
Right now I've got my kids outside walking her around as I know that's important for a horse that gets too much grain and figure it's similar with cows. I'm not sure what else to do.
Any thoughts?
My husband just came in and told me she just had some pretty loose stool.
Laura