Mummies

Well it's snowing here, so I figured I would go ahead and update from my adventures yesterday. I headed out to Dr. C.'s around  8 am and we got out on the road shortly thereafter. He is always waiting for me to get there, with the truck warmed up and everything, but I am always there when he wishes me to be. He is one of the few vets I have met who is extremely timely, which I really love. We only had two calls on the schedule. The first was a herd check at a Menonite farm. The set up there was really nice. I felt a little uncomfortable at first (which was rather naive of me), since I know that women in their community normally keep their hair covered, and mine was it's usual messy self, though tamed slightly into a ponytail. But the two sons and the father were just as humorous and nice as every other farmer we have run into. We did some pregnancy and heat checks, then some podiatry work on a heifer that had an ulcer. Dr. C. had done some work on her last week, but she had actually gotten worse. He cleaned out another area of the hoof, found the beginnings of some hoof rot between her toes, and put her on a new regiment of medication to treat that. We also did some more dehorning, and some cattle vaccination. With the vaccinations that we gave, the calves also got an ear tag and a tattoo in their ear.

The next farm we headed to was for castrations. Three angus meat calves needed to be vaccinated and castrated. I've seen plenty of horse geldings, and neuters on dogs, but that was far from what happened with the calves. Instead of the sedation, clamping, tie offs and re-closure I am used to, the cattle castrations were quick and dirty. The calves were put in a head gate, and Dr. C. vaccinated them. He then pulled out a wicked-looking tool from his sanitized bucket and solution. He checked to make sure the calves had both testicles descended, and then took the tool and slit open the scrotum sac, exposing the testicles. He then reached in, broke the ligaments with his fingers, clamped on the arteries and pulled the testicles out. Literally just cut a few strands, including the vas deferens, and then sprayed liquid bandage on it and the calf was done. It took about 30 seconds to a minute for the whole procedure. Dr. C. explained to me that if the blood vessels weren't properly clamped down upon (which he did with his fingers alone), then you could cause the calf to bleed out in a matter of seconds. With all that he did, I didn't see a drop of blood come out. It was very interesting.

By this time it was around noon, and he had gotten a whole pile of phone calls while we were on the farm. We had three emergency calls. The first was for a downed beef cow. In a whole pasture of cows, this lone girl was down in the mud, steaming and shaking. She was able to get up a few steps, but then laid right back down, clearly weak. After looking her over, Dr. C. determined that she most likely had toxic ingestion. He gave her a bottle of some sort of calcium fluid IV in the neck to help balance her out, as well as some banamine and another IM injection which I can't remember the name of (oops). The cow was also pregnant, so he had to be careful what he gave her so that she didn't abort. He left the farmer with instructions to get her up and isolated via hip slings or tractor bucket so that she could have time to rest and regain her strength without the other cows bothering her.

The second emergency call was for three sick cows. All were heifers, and all had different uterus problems. One had chunks left over in her uterus from her most recent calf, one was slightly pussy (indicating infection), and one had a mild case of mastitis on top of having a infection in her uterus. All had been off their feed and down in milk production, the usual indicators of disease for farmers.

The third emergency call was much more bizarre. A pregnant heifer had gone down in the field about a month before, and the farmers thought she must have had or aborted a calf, but couldn't find it. The cow appeared healthy and had no problems, so they continued to milk her without an issue. About two days ago, she had been losing "cleanings" from her vagina, which the farmers had been pulling out. Today, however, they found a tail sticking out, and called Dr. C. He was a little puzzled by the whole thing, but as soon as he examined the cow, what had happened became evident. When the cow had gone down a month ago, she had halfway aborted her backwards calf. It had left the uterus, passed the cervix, and stopped in the vagina. It was still able to survive however, since the placenta was still attached and functioning, and it did. It continued to grow, though much stunted by space. It had recently died, a day or two ago, which is when the cow had started to pass bits of her placenta, and was trying to push the calf out. The calf in the meantime, began to mummify slightly. So Dr. C. pulled out a partly mummified, backwards, very small calf. The cow, I swear, let out a sigh of relief when it came out. She was slightly damaged and stretched out from the odd calf placement, but would probably be able to be bred again in a month or so. Dr. C. said that was the first time he had ever seen this happen, and remarked on how bizarre it was!

I ended up getting home around 4:30 and immediately jumped in the shower (I can't tell you how hard it is to get the smell of calf dehorning out of your hair and skin). Jared and I headed out to dinner and a movie, which was really fun since we hadn't been out on a date in months.

I am heading out with Doc (the equine vet) on Monday, am riding along with Dr. C. on Wednesday and Friday,  and am going in to the small animal hospital on Thursday. So it should be a busy week!

~Melissa