Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2010 15:49:07 GMT -5
Hello, Maybe you guys can help me. I have a 16 month old Santa Gertrudis show heifer born 12-15-08. Her name is Lucchese. We bought her on 6-30-09 and brought her home on 07-11-09 when she was 7 months old.
We were at the Houston Live Stock Show March 17-22. On Saturday March 20 my son who is 16 called home an told me that Lucchese was pregnant. You can imagine my shock. She has never been around a bull at all. She is closely watched and she is our only cow. So I asked him a really stupid question, how could she be pregnant? Well I found out that a 7 month old heifer could get pregnant from a bull calf if they are in the same pasture and there were several in the pasture with Lucchese.
My next question was why do you think she is pregnant. Since I was at home, several hours away I thought this was a reasonable question. He told me that she had bagged up and was leaking milk. He also said that his Ag teacher and 8 other Ag teachers from across the state looked at her and they said she was pregnant, and his Ag teacher palpated her although he did not feel anything.(he admits he is not experienced at palpating)
Well we had another show the same week that they got back from Houston so on Wednesday, March 24 on the way to the next show my son took Lucchese to the Vet to make sure she was not fixin to calf at the show. (this show was about 30 min from the house) The Vet palpated her and said that she is not pregnant and that she has a cyst the size of an apple on her left ovary. He went on to say that it has been a long time since he's seen it but it is not uncommon for a follicular cyst to cause lactation in a virgin heifer.
Let me say right now that the internet is not your friend when you are ignorant on a subject and start researching. I quickly found out that there is only 1 documented case of a follicular cyst causing lactation in a virgin heifer it was an 8 month old Holstein. And only 2 other documented cases of spontaneous lactation in virgin heifers.
So, since I did not go to the Vet with my son (I had to be in court) I called him the next morning. (this is not the vet we normally use) and when I asked him about the research he told me that "I don't know nothing about that, but she has a cyst". He gave her a shot of cysterlon and wanted us to bring her back in 30 days.
The vet then went out of his way to track down the Ag teacher at the livestock show and tell him all of this with one little exception. He (the vet) told me he had seen this before, but he told the Ag teacher he had never seen anything like it and that we need to make sure and bring her back in 30 days because he wants to run a bunch of tests on her. (When I talked to him he seemed unconcerned) He also said she would be infertile and that we should "dispose" of her (over my dead body).
So, now my Ag teacher is convinced my heifer is not pregnant but since this all started she has continued to bag up and is HUGE now and her vulva is loose and sloppy and gets bigger every day, she is constantly up and down and when she is up she is kicking at her stomach, or licking at her stomach, and constantly flicking her tail, she is getting looser and looser in the pins and two days ago she sucked in behind her thurls and starting having a thick white discharge. She is acting strange... I MMS a picture to the Ag teacher of her huge, loose, sloppy, vulva with the discharge and asked him what was up and he says its normal for all this to happen just before a cow gives birth? So I said, "so you are back to thinking she's pregnant" to which he replied "no its the cyst making her hormones go nuts..."
So here I am with a heifer that looks and acts like she is gonna have a calf any day now and I did the math and if she did get pregnant at 7 months she would be at 175 days today. I talked to several expert vets in the field of bovine reproduction and they all said the same thing.
While, it is possible that a follicular cyst could cause lactation in a virgin heifer we have a better chance of winning the lottery than that happening. They also said that the only thing a cyst might cause is the lactation not all the other symptoms, and they said that if she has a small calf and it is low under the pelvic brim that it could easily be missed even at 8 months when she is palpated. They also said the vet should have confirmed the cyst with a sonogram. (which he did not do) And they said that a cyst would not make her infertile.
So now I am soooo confused.... Has anyone ever heard of this before? I need some help... If she is prego she should calf any day and I don't want to stress her out by putting her in a trailer to take her to our vet to find out but if she is not pregnant then I need to take her to our vet for a sonogram. The waiting to see is killing me, and I have had so many conflicting opinions that I am just lost....
We were at the Houston Live Stock Show March 17-22. On Saturday March 20 my son who is 16 called home an told me that Lucchese was pregnant. You can imagine my shock. She has never been around a bull at all. She is closely watched and she is our only cow. So I asked him a really stupid question, how could she be pregnant? Well I found out that a 7 month old heifer could get pregnant from a bull calf if they are in the same pasture and there were several in the pasture with Lucchese.
My next question was why do you think she is pregnant. Since I was at home, several hours away I thought this was a reasonable question. He told me that she had bagged up and was leaking milk. He also said that his Ag teacher and 8 other Ag teachers from across the state looked at her and they said she was pregnant, and his Ag teacher palpated her although he did not feel anything.(he admits he is not experienced at palpating)
Well we had another show the same week that they got back from Houston so on Wednesday, March 24 on the way to the next show my son took Lucchese to the Vet to make sure she was not fixin to calf at the show. (this show was about 30 min from the house) The Vet palpated her and said that she is not pregnant and that she has a cyst the size of an apple on her left ovary. He went on to say that it has been a long time since he's seen it but it is not uncommon for a follicular cyst to cause lactation in a virgin heifer.
Let me say right now that the internet is not your friend when you are ignorant on a subject and start researching. I quickly found out that there is only 1 documented case of a follicular cyst causing lactation in a virgin heifer it was an 8 month old Holstein. And only 2 other documented cases of spontaneous lactation in virgin heifers.
So, since I did not go to the Vet with my son (I had to be in court) I called him the next morning. (this is not the vet we normally use) and when I asked him about the research he told me that "I don't know nothing about that, but she has a cyst". He gave her a shot of cysterlon and wanted us to bring her back in 30 days.
The vet then went out of his way to track down the Ag teacher at the livestock show and tell him all of this with one little exception. He (the vet) told me he had seen this before, but he told the Ag teacher he had never seen anything like it and that we need to make sure and bring her back in 30 days because he wants to run a bunch of tests on her. (When I talked to him he seemed unconcerned) He also said she would be infertile and that we should "dispose" of her (over my dead body).
So, now my Ag teacher is convinced my heifer is not pregnant but since this all started she has continued to bag up and is HUGE now and her vulva is loose and sloppy and gets bigger every day, she is constantly up and down and when she is up she is kicking at her stomach, or licking at her stomach, and constantly flicking her tail, she is getting looser and looser in the pins and two days ago she sucked in behind her thurls and starting having a thick white discharge. She is acting strange... I MMS a picture to the Ag teacher of her huge, loose, sloppy, vulva with the discharge and asked him what was up and he says its normal for all this to happen just before a cow gives birth? So I said, "so you are back to thinking she's pregnant" to which he replied "no its the cyst making her hormones go nuts..."
So here I am with a heifer that looks and acts like she is gonna have a calf any day now and I did the math and if she did get pregnant at 7 months she would be at 175 days today. I talked to several expert vets in the field of bovine reproduction and they all said the same thing.
While, it is possible that a follicular cyst could cause lactation in a virgin heifer we have a better chance of winning the lottery than that happening. They also said that the only thing a cyst might cause is the lactation not all the other symptoms, and they said that if she has a small calf and it is low under the pelvic brim that it could easily be missed even at 8 months when she is palpated. They also said the vet should have confirmed the cyst with a sonogram. (which he did not do) And they said that a cyst would not make her infertile.
So now I am soooo confused.... Has anyone ever heard of this before? I need some help... If she is prego she should calf any day and I don't want to stress her out by putting her in a trailer to take her to our vet to find out but if she is not pregnant then I need to take her to our vet for a sonogram. The waiting to see is killing me, and I have had so many conflicting opinions that I am just lost....