Post by brenda on Mar 26, 2016 16:02:18 GMT -5
Sigh...
Monday morning we woke up to a beautiful, spunky heifer calf and a very proud mama. Wednesday morning April had chilly ears and was somewhat lethargic. "Spring" still super spunky. You know how it is when you feel rotten but the kids still want to play?
Anyway, took her temp and it is 107. Run to the house and call closest vet (who had just been out to put down my old dog, Mandy...yes, a very tough week). Not being too familiar with dairy, she suggested an infection but see what the other group of vets think for 2nd opinion.
Second clinic feels MF is the problem as does the woman I bought April from. Not having experienced MF, I am thinking it doesn't quite match symptoms I've read about but what do I know? I follow their protocol for the whole day without much improvement although her temp did get down and her ears warmed up for awhile. I finally went to bed but April's ears had gotten cold again.
At 6 am I was out with her and took temp again. I was glad to see she had moved herself a couple of times. But temp is now 96.3. She has virtually no desire to get up. Run to house, call vets again and 2 are out here by 10 am. They worked with her for over 2 hours and were very puzzled. Before they arrived I noticed that when I squeezed April's teats to relieve some pressure it was just watery blood..no milk. They are puzzled by that, too. Again, vets here are not overly experienced with dairy, but they did keep wondering about mastitis (I think they said the word septic). April has never had mastitis or MF or ketosis so I cannot imagine why she would suddenly wake up with something like that. They checked her rumen...it was empty and bloody and they looked grim.
After they did all they thought would be helpful and they WERE hopeful, we had her comfortably out of the elements with little Spring by her side. She however, needed help keeping her balance all the way into the barn...maybe 20 feet away. She was much weaker than morning when she was much weaker than the day before.
We shut the door and ran to town for some supplies and when I came to check on her, she had gotten up, walked a ways and then died. Tragic. A mystery.
So sad, but I have no time to be all teary because now Spring needs a mama and we really need milk in our fridges so I start shopping.
Yesterday I talked to a very kind Jersey dairy owner in Idaho who asked what happened and I told him just a couple of the things and he knew immediately what it was. A type of mastitis from e coli in the soil. Very often affects mature cows (she was 7) who have just calved and have a high incidence of edema(she always had quite bloody milk for nearly 10 days after calving). He said it is very hard to recognize soon enough to fix and it kills quickly. He lost a cow just a few days previous to the same thing.
I share this as a learning tool for everyone. I could not find it mentioned in my little house cow type books. I do wonder if a dairy vet had heard the symptoms, maybe we could have gotten the right medicine then. Instead I walked her around as told to me to do for MF for a full day and probably just tired her out unnecessarily. Her poor body just went into shock.
I will miss my sweet cow with the beautiful horns. I might let Spring keep her horns. ;-)
Monday morning we woke up to a beautiful, spunky heifer calf and a very proud mama. Wednesday morning April had chilly ears and was somewhat lethargic. "Spring" still super spunky. You know how it is when you feel rotten but the kids still want to play?
Anyway, took her temp and it is 107. Run to the house and call closest vet (who had just been out to put down my old dog, Mandy...yes, a very tough week). Not being too familiar with dairy, she suggested an infection but see what the other group of vets think for 2nd opinion.
Second clinic feels MF is the problem as does the woman I bought April from. Not having experienced MF, I am thinking it doesn't quite match symptoms I've read about but what do I know? I follow their protocol for the whole day without much improvement although her temp did get down and her ears warmed up for awhile. I finally went to bed but April's ears had gotten cold again.
At 6 am I was out with her and took temp again. I was glad to see she had moved herself a couple of times. But temp is now 96.3. She has virtually no desire to get up. Run to house, call vets again and 2 are out here by 10 am. They worked with her for over 2 hours and were very puzzled. Before they arrived I noticed that when I squeezed April's teats to relieve some pressure it was just watery blood..no milk. They are puzzled by that, too. Again, vets here are not overly experienced with dairy, but they did keep wondering about mastitis (I think they said the word septic). April has never had mastitis or MF or ketosis so I cannot imagine why she would suddenly wake up with something like that. They checked her rumen...it was empty and bloody and they looked grim.
After they did all they thought would be helpful and they WERE hopeful, we had her comfortably out of the elements with little Spring by her side. She however, needed help keeping her balance all the way into the barn...maybe 20 feet away. She was much weaker than morning when she was much weaker than the day before.
We shut the door and ran to town for some supplies and when I came to check on her, she had gotten up, walked a ways and then died. Tragic. A mystery.
So sad, but I have no time to be all teary because now Spring needs a mama and we really need milk in our fridges so I start shopping.
Yesterday I talked to a very kind Jersey dairy owner in Idaho who asked what happened and I told him just a couple of the things and he knew immediately what it was. A type of mastitis from e coli in the soil. Very often affects mature cows (she was 7) who have just calved and have a high incidence of edema(she always had quite bloody milk for nearly 10 days after calving). He said it is very hard to recognize soon enough to fix and it kills quickly. He lost a cow just a few days previous to the same thing.
I share this as a learning tool for everyone. I could not find it mentioned in my little house cow type books. I do wonder if a dairy vet had heard the symptoms, maybe we could have gotten the right medicine then. Instead I walked her around as told to me to do for MF for a full day and probably just tired her out unnecessarily. Her poor body just went into shock.
I will miss my sweet cow with the beautiful horns. I might let Spring keep her horns. ;-)