Friday, February 9, 2018, 4:40 pm
I went out to do chores a couple of hours ago. Yeah, I do chores in the afternoon. I had work this morning and then I had to go to the next town over to get supplement for the calves (thanks to HiPro shutting down our local feed mill), so by the time I got home, ate lunch, and rested a bit (I hadn't been feeling well), it was significantly later than when most farmers feed their cattle.
After taking a little bit of grain (as a treat) to the youngest group of calves, and feeding the bulls, I filled the troughs for the feeder cattle. Walking to the gate to let the calves in for grain, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. Two greyish legs were stick up in the air, way at the back of the pen. Every farmer know that's a sure sign an animal is dead. I let the calves in, locked them in the feeding pen, checked the waterers, and then slowly walked over to check out the situation. I expected to find a bloated calf, with it's eyes picked out by ravens. It had probably eaten too much grain.
That is not what I found The heifer (female calf) - about 8 months old - was blown up like a balloon, as all dead animal eventually are, but didn't really look like it had bloated. I haven't actually seen a whole lot of calves killed by bloat, but this one just didn't have the classic bloated look (one side blows up, while the other stays fairly normal). And the eye was still in the socket, but there was blood all over its head. I don't think that's normal. There was no evidence that any animal (raven, coyote, etc.) had found the dead heifer and started eating on her. However, blood leaked out from her eye, nose, and mouth, and there were a couple of spots of blood in other places on her body that didn't really make sense. I have never seen that much blood on a dead animal that hasn't been touched by another animal. What on earth happened to this heifer?
My mind immediately went to the Worst Possible Scenario (of course). Anthrax. I had learned a bit about anthrax in my livestock health and disease course in college. It's rare, deadly, zoonotic (passes to humans), and must be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Leaving the heifer, I returned to the house and grabbed my edition of The Beef Cow-calf Manual. I looked up anthrax and read about the symptoms: sudden death, possible lack of rigor mortis, failure of clotting in the blood. I read that anthrax is rare and that it usually occurs in hot, dry summers, following wet springs. Totally unsure of a diagnosis, I called my dad and described the calf to him. He has never heard of anthrax (why would he? It's rare), but agreed that I could call the vet and have the heifer tested. After pulling the heifer out of the pen with the tractor and letting the calves back in, I hurried inside and called the vet before the office closed.
The vet (the one who always seems to get my worst cases, the poor guy) talked to me for a while to get some information. He said it's not likely anthrax, as it doesn't usually occur this time of the year (which I already knew from my reading, but it's always reassuring to hear a professional say so) and suggested a liver abscess, before promising to send someone out in an hour or two, whenever they have time.
So now I wait, hovering between panic that my entire herd will be infected and embarrassment at what is probably a total over-reaction. I tell myself that my super cool farmer friends from college would not be this worried about one dead heifer, no matter how unusual the circumstances. I remind myself that this heifer was only recently weaned and may not have been able to keep up to the grain ration like the older calves. She's probably just bloated and I just couldn't tell. The vet will show me what I missed and it will all be okay. And yet, I have left my outside work clothes in the basement until I can get them washed in hot water, and have instructed my roommate to not let her cat into the porch or basement, since cats can catch anthrax, too.
5:20 pm
I just heard the dogs barking and glanced out the window to see that the vet (one I hadn't met before) was already over by the heifer, so I headed out to get his diagnosis.
It was bloat.
He's not sure why she bloated, because she seems healthy and nothing has changed in her diet. Apparently it is common for blood to come out of the facial orifices, because bloat causes the blood to all gather and pool in the front part of the animal, restricting the blood from reaching the hind end. He showed me the signs, talked for a bit about the two kinds of bloat, and told me to keep an eye on the rest of the calves.
So, I guess my panic was for nothing and I'll have to pay for a post-mortem that really wasn't needed. But hey, I learned something new and got through the ordeal in fairly good shape. Also, the vet didn't laugh at me, which was rather gracious of him.
I guess I'd better get of the computer and write down the heifer's death in my record book. I just wanted to share with my readers a bit of what farmers do when they encounter a dead animal (though usually without the panicked over-reaction).
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| After writing the heifer's death details in my record book, I had to "retire" her Canadian Cattle identification Agency (CCIA) tag from the CCIA record system. This screen shot shows the confirmation portion of the process. |
