Don't always trust your vet
Jan 14, 2020 16:48:26 GMT -5
simplynaturalfarm, Shawn, and 17 more like this
Post by thystledown on Jan 14, 2020 16:48:26 GMT -5
I have a great vet. She's one of the senior vets at a large practice that covers a lot of area--one of the few practices left for large animals in our area--and it started as an equine clinic. I would totally trust her on my horses. But with the cows, I'm a little more iffy. Last year my Jersey had a bad case of mastitis at freshening. She'd run dry for 18 months and it apparently got a good hold during that long dry spell. It cultured Staph--species not aureus. The quarter dried up and I had to milk 3 quarters. When she freshened this year in September, it came back in to milk. The cow had mastitis on freshening in the other front quarter, but it was strep. Nevertheless, both my usual vet and another in the practice wanted to kill the quarter that had the staph last year. At the very least, they wanted me to leave it for the calf as it wouldn't be fit for human consumption. Now there was no mastitis in it this year. I treated the infected quarter (minor issue soon fixed) and went on milking 3 quarters and leaving the one that had been dry last year for the calf. But it bugged me, so I had the milk from that quarter and the other front quarter tested. Sent it for a full DNA panel--the most in depth testing the DHIA lab does. It came back clean. The other quarter still had low level traces of strep. So the vet would have had me kill a perfectly good quarter just because it had a bad case of staph last year and went dry. They never heard of a quarter recovering. It is absolutely normal now. Clean milk test, normal size and production. But had I followed my vet's advice, I'd have permanently destroyed a quarter.
Item two. Some of you may have read about the impacted rumen diagnosis on my cow this winter. Could be. But nothing matched what the vet said would happen, and while her advice was helpful, what we suspect made the real difference was putting a cow magnet down her. That was never suggested by the vet. People on here suggested the cow might have hardware. We tried all the things the vet suggested, and some of them didn't work--like giving her warm water. She will not drink warm water! Had we continued to try and force her to, she would probably have died. We put salt in her grain, and that made her drink. That helped the most until we put the magnet down her. Now she seems normal and is gaining weight.
Now I do appreciate my vet. I know she's giving me educated information. I will continue to ask her advice. But I will remember that it is just that--advice based on her best guess and previous experience, that I can accept or reject. The decisions and consequences all fall on me either way.