Post by blaire on Jul 16, 2008 9:46:50 GMT -5
Argh! More lessons! Last week while we went to 4-H horse camp, GInger and Roxie went to "cow camp". My friend who has several cows and milks daily graciously offered to keep them so I could go. His pasture is native, mine is alfalfa/grass mix. We picked Ginger and Roxy up on Sunday afternoon and put her right to her pen. On monday I milked and let her our briefly before we drove to Wyoming to look at a horse. We got home a couple hours before milking time so I let her out to graze. After about 45 minutes she comes crazily stumbling into the yard, lays down, gasping, gets up, lays down again and gasps more. My DH and I look at each other and wonder what the heck is going on. We get a hold of her halter and then can tell that she is bloated. She's in terrible distress. We were able to get the leadrope over her tongue and hold it down and she spewed up tons of partially digested green sludge (Roxy loved it). She was leaking urine and pooping all over the place and I thought we needed to stick her. Luckily my DH was there to help. With Ging being in such crazy pain she stepped on my foot and smashed my little toe! Luckily I had on my riding boots. ANyway, we stuck her with a pocket knife and then inserted a small syringe holder with the end cut off. The opening sputtered and blew and we continued to hold her tongue down with the leadrope. It was very "Western". Finally she started to show signs of relief. SHe calmed down and started breathing more normally (heavily but not open mouthed panting). I went ahead and milked her and then put her in her pen. The next day she was still very sore and a little swollen, I milked her am and pm with my 11yo DS's help as the belt for the bucket milker hangs right where we poked, OK stabbed her. She's now on dry feed. What a scary fiasco! Prior to going to cow camp I let her graze our yard all day after milking and even after the evening milking before penning her for the evening. I should have known that after going to a drier more native pasture, my green alfalfa/grass would have been too much of a change. I guess I know now! I feel lucky to still have her.