Ash and Murph Invade New Zealand: It's Called Pugging!

Tuesday, July 21st & Wednesday, July 22nd

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty slow this week. They kind of started to blur together. We all got a touch of cabin fever. Here are the highlights

One call was to see a prolapsed uterus. When we got there the farmer had already given his own epidural and pushed the uterus back in to place. Way to steal our thunder, man.

Murphy and I went out to two different calvings. Unfortunately neither calf survived. I did learn that I am not a huge fan of using a calving jack in the chute while a cow is bouncing around. A large metal pole swinging around off the rear end of a very unconfortable cow is something I like to avoid.

Here's what a calving jack looks like:

Picture courtesy of Google. The jack attaches to the legs of the calf and pushes off of the cow. I'm pretty sure that lady in the photo is just posing for the picture....she looks way too clean.

I also learned that it is very easy to get carsick on the winding roads of the hills of New Zealand in a manual transmission truck with a very bouncy suspension.

Another call was to assist with a calving in a cow that was down in the padock. The farmer told us his jersey was having twins. Here's how he knew:

That's two heads and four forelimbs coming out all at once. Eager little calves. They were fairly easy to pull but neither lived. After a bag of Calcium, the cow was up and trotting across the paddock as if nothing had happened.

Going out to the paddock for a calving is usually less than ideal. First, you have to get your truck out there, which can be a feat in itself if you don't have 4-wheel drive. Then, you have to lug all of your gear across the field. Hopefully, there's a farmhand around who can help out. Then, there's the fact that the cow is out in the paddock, which means that for whatever reason, she's down, and they couldn't get her to the shed.

There are also some cool things about being in the paddock. There's always an audience of curious cows, standing around, re-chewing their grass, and watching you work. The occasional cow will sneak close enough and give your gear a quick sniff or try to lick at the water bucket. Any calves who happen to be around are a bit braver. They come running up, awkwardly, like a clumsy toddler who's just learned to run. They look around, moo, sniff your stuff, and then run away. It's adorable.

Wednesday ended for me with a call to see two sick cows. The first cow had a large amount of subcutaneous edema and emphysema over her sides and back. She had a fever and was lethargic and mildly dyspneic She had calved more than a day before, and at the time was given two bags of calcium IV and one bag of calcium sub-q. The vet thought she may have been innoculated with and infection when she received her sub-q injection. A clostridial infection seemed most likely based on the large amounts of gas she had under her skin. We gave her some antibiotics. The second sick cow had respiratory signs and enlarged lymph nodes with a fever. Her signs were very non-specific so we gave her some anti-inflammatories and antibiotics, and said to keep an eye on her for changes.

During one of the calls on Wednesday, a farmer showed us one of his calves that he was very proud of. He said it was from a Friesian cow bred to a Dutch Blue bull. (That's what I heard at least...sometimes I miss-hear some accents) It was a pretty cool calf: