It was cold today. Again. It's going to be cold all week here. And cloudy and rainy.
First thing this morning, Murphy got called out to help with vaccinations and I went out to help with cows that were being synchronized for breeding. There were only about 20 cows, or so, that this farmer was synchonizing. One week ago, all of these cows received a shot of GnRH. The cows with non-active ovaries received progesterone secreting implants (CIDR). This first GnRH injection causes ovulation and the CIDR implants prevent some cows from going into heat sooner that the rest of the herd. Today, we went out and removed the CIDR's from cows that received them, and gave all of the cows a shot of prostaglandin. This dose of prostaglandin will cause the corpus lutea to regress and new follicles to develop in the ovaries. Two and a half days later, the farmer will give his cows another dose of GnRH (to make them ovulate) and then inseminate them 16 hours later. 270 days later (hopefully), calves are born!
This is our office. Very green.
The second call I went out on was for a lame heifer. The farmer said she had been lame on her front right foot for a couple of days. The vet watched her walk, looked at her hoof, and found that she had white line disease. This occurs when there is separation of the hoof wall and sole, allowing foreign material to penetrate and infect the white line region. After trimming away part of her hoof we saw that she had a decent amount of pus and it was infected. The vet trimmed away enough of the sole to let it drain, sprayed it with some lovely, purple, topical antibiotic and sent the cow on her way. 95% of the time, trimming the hoof and allowing it a passage from which to drain, is sufficient treatment in cows. I learned that heifers in particular are more prone to developing this. They are more often bullied by other cows and end up putting a lot of pressure on the forward part of their front legs. This is usually where the white line becomes weakened and allows in foreign debris.
In case you don't remember much hoof anatomy (like me) here's a diagram:
The third call of the day was the most exciting call! When we left, we were under the impression it was a prolapsed uterus in a ewe (female sheep). When we arrived, the owner informed us that her pregnant ewe had been straining to give birth for over an hour. She had lambed before, but seemed to be having trouble. The vet examined her and determined that the lamb had it's head back and that the ewe's cervix was no longer dilated. That was going to make it even more difficult to pull the lamb. He corrected the position of the head and after a lot of struggling, eventually pulled the lamb free. The lamb was fairly large, and sadly, didn't survive the birth. However, there was not one, but two more lambs that he successfully pulled! These two little lambs were very lively and eventually started to stand and "bah!". There aren't many things cuter than newborn lambs.
The ewe did a good job of going to her lambs and starting to clean them up, right away. We put them out in a paddok out of the mud where they'd be warmer. Look at that tired, proud mama.
We ended the day with a sick cow. She had recently calved and had a raging fever of 42...which translates to roughly 105-106 in Farenheit. She most likely had metritis. Metritis is an infection of the uterus. This cow's calving had gone smoothly, as far as we know. There was a bit of discharge and her placental membranes were still adhered in some places. We gave her a dose of pencillin and metcam and sent her on her way.
Murphy and I went back to our motel cabin and ate chocolate while we waited for our room to warm up. For some reason the owner of this establishment thinks it's okay to come and turn the heat off in the rooms during the day. Who doesn't love coming home to a 45 degree room? We were too lazy to walk out into the cold to get to the kitchen, so we made ramen noodles with hot water from our kettle. They weren't too bad. In typical old lady fashion, we fell asleep reading in bed by 9:30 pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment