Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2017 23:53:58 GMT -5
Where has five weeks gone?! Spring is heavily upon us here in central Indiana, and while quite busy, I still love this time of year!
And, for a story: Monday morning, Dad came home and told me that one of the calves was limping severely, and that its leg was swollen. I didn't find time to go check it out until Tuesday evening (I really didn't think much about it at the time). When I went over, I found the oldest heifer in the group, nearly 10 months, lying next to the hay feeder. I suspected her as the injured calf, since it was quite unusual for her to not get up and come over to the fence to be petted. (She's a real sweetheart.) She eventually got up and struggled to the water trough, and then back to the hay feeder to eat. Upon closer examination, I found that her right front leg, from the knee down was very swollen and, obviously, very painful to the touch. At first, I couldn't see anything abnormal, but as I continued examining the area, I found......... a screw! A 3 1/2" screw! It was driven at a downward angle into her leg, just below the knee on the back side. I called Dad on the cellphone, and we managed to carefully catch her between some gates and remove the screw. Dad was going to try to twist it out, but with all her fidgeting, that didn't work. Ouch..... Thankfully she was a good girl during the handling, and I think she'll be just fine now.
Below are pictures of the screw. Thankfully, it was a fairly new one, so it wasn't rusty. It was one we had used in repairing the old wooden hay feeder less than two months ago, but the feeder is breaking apart in one area, so I best guess is that one of the screws came loose and she somehow got it into her leg.
See where my finger is? The threaded portion from the tip to my finger is how far the screw was in her leg:
So, that wasn't a very happy way to greet you all, was it? Anyway, I hope you are all doing well, and I imagine it will take me some time to get caught up with the latest on the forum. I am preparing to go through and compile all of last year's herd data, so I'll likely have some questions and perhaps some interesting topics to discuss in the coming weeks.
Ah, I was going to try hard to quit posting so late at night, and now I've messed up on the first try.